446 ON THE GEOLOGY OF THE 



nearly impossible to distinguish them from the uninjured dead 

 shells, which are thrown upon the beach. Some of them have 

 preserved their colour, particularly the red ones, so as to de- 

 ceive any one. 



St Hospice is a long narrow peninsula, which from its sin- 

 gularly fantastic shape, forms a most beautiful feature in the 

 country, and is, for the most part, covered with olive trees ; 

 some of these are so large, and present such an aspect of anti- 

 quity, that they are considered by the country people to be six 

 or seven hundred years old. The neck by which it is joined to 

 the mainland is the lowest part of it, and there it may be seventy 

 or eighty feet above the level of the sea. M. Risso has descri- 

 bed* a deposite of sea-sand and shells, which was found in ex- 

 cavating a well in this peninsula, at the height of 20 metres 

 above the sea-mark. They had only gone down three metres 

 when the deposite in question was penetrated, which was found 

 to be five metres in thickness. The shells were here discovered 

 in such a perfect state, that when Risso presented them as fossil 

 productions in Paris, his veracity was somewhat questioned. 

 On the east side of the Peninsula of St Hospice, not three 

 hundred yards from this spot, on the edge of the cliff, I found 

 what appears to be a continuation of the above deposite but 

 here not more than fifteen or twenty feet above the level of 

 the sea. They lie on a mass of blue clay belonging to the se- 

 cond limestone, and are either imbedded in a fine white dry 

 sand, or mixed with a proportion of clayey marl, and in one 

 place were so abundant, that they may be taken out by the 

 handful. The bed which contains these shells differs in thick- 

 ness ; in some places it may measure from 12 to 15 feet. The 

 upper part of it is frequently so indurated, that it requires the 



hammer 



* Journal des Mines, No. 200. 



