Ch. YL] 



IN THE ISLAND OF SICILY. 



75 



in the Mediterranean have been found. Since the sea retired a con- 

 siderable thickness of breccia has accumulated over the sand, so as to 

 conceal from view the lithodomous perforations, except in places 



Fiff. 



'///WJ/l/lA 



'i/ii i if. i i/imm^=== 



a. Monte Grifone. &. Cave of San Ciro.* 



c. Plain of Palermo, in which are Newer Pliocene strata of 

 limestone and sand. d. Bay of Palermo. 



where these have been exposed to view by artificial excavations. 

 The breccia is composed of pieces of limestone, quartz, and schist in 

 a matrix of brown marl through which land shells are dispersed 

 together with bones of two species, as we learn from Dr. Falconer, 

 of extinct hippopotamus, in such numbers that they must have be- 

 longed to several hundred individuals. "With these are associated the 

 remains of Elephas antiquus (as determined by the same osteologist), 

 and the osseous remains of Bos, Cervus, Sus, Ursus, Canis, and a 

 large Felis. Some of these bones have been rolled as if partially 

 subjected to the action of water, and the whole seem to have been 

 introduced (perhaps by engulfed streams) both in this and some neigh- 

 boring caverns through rents in the hippurite limestone, which must 

 once have been connected with the surface of the country above, at a 

 time when the physical geography of the region was extremely dif- 

 ferent from what it now is, and when rivers frequented by the hippo- 

 potamus existed where now no running water is to be found. 



Besides terraces of deposition such as c, fig. 93, above alluded to, 

 there are also in Sicily others of denudation. One of these occurs 

 on the east coast to the north of Syracuse, and the same is resumed 

 to the south beyond the town of Nbto, where it may be traced form- 

 ing a continuous and lofty precipice, a 6, fig. 94, facing toward the 

 sea, and constituting the abrupt termination of a calcareous for- 

 mation, which extends in horizontal strata far inland. This preci- 

 pice varies in height from 500 to 700 feet, and between its base 

 and the sea is an inferior platform, c b, consisting of similar white 

 limestone. All the beds dip toward the sea, but are usually in- 

 clined at a very slight angle : they are seen to extend uninterrupt- 

 edly from the base of the escarpment into the platform, showino- 

 distinctly that the lofty cliff was not produced by a fault or ver- 

 tical shift of the beds, but by the removal of a considerable mass 

 of rock. Hence we may conclude that the sea, which is now 

 undermining the cliffs of the Sicilian coast, reached at some for- 

 mer period the base of the precipice a b, at which time the sur- 



* Dr. Christie, Edin. New Phil. Jour. 



