SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



65 



MALTESE CAVES AND THEIR FAUNA. 



By John H. Cooke, F.L.S., F.G.S., Etc. 



\\ WHETHER regarded from an historic or from 

 ** a prehistoric standpoint, there is no place 

 in or around the Mediterranean which is so in- 

 tensely interesting to the student as the Maltese 

 Islands. Within the narrow limits of its rock- 

 bound shores the naturalist has furnished an 

 epitome of the physical history of the greater 

 portion of the Mediterranean region from Eocene 

 times onward. The historian finds the quint- 

 essence of the histories of the peoples who have 

 been engaged in struggles for empire in the 

 countries around from the time when the Phoeni- 

 cians first colonized the islands, 3000 B.C., to their 

 occupation by the British in the early part of 

 the present century. 

 The Maltese group 

 consist of the Islands 

 of Malta, Gozo and 

 Comino, together 

 with several small 

 barren islets, the 

 principal of which 

 are Filfola and 

 Cominotto. They 

 are situated in the 

 central Mediterra- 

 nean at a distance 

 of sixty miles to the 

 south of Sicily and 

 two hundred miles 

 to the north of Cape 

 Calipia, the nearest 

 point in Africa. On 



the north they are connected with Sicily by a 

 submarine plateau, the depth of submergence of 

 • which does not exceed seventy fathoms in any 

 part. To the south a deep channel, having an 

 average depth of 230 fathoms, and which is 190 

 miles long and from sixty to a hundred miles wide, 

 forms a natural boundary between them and Africa. 

 Malta is the principal island of the group both 

 in size and commercial importance, its greatest 

 length being seventeen miles and its greatest 

 breadth ten miles. Though less fertile than Gozo, 

 its population is nearly eight times as large, an 

 anomaly which is principally due to the fine 

 harbours, where the greater part of the population, 

 military, naval and commercial, have segregated. 



Fifty years ago little or nothing was known of 

 the natural history of the islands, but of late years 



* Elephas mnaidra, E. melitcnsis, E. falcoiteri, Gyps vieli- 

 tensis, Cetvus barbarus, Ursus arctos, Cygnus melitensis. 

 Tryonyx melitensis, Myoxus melitensis, Grus melitensis, Hippo- 

 potamus pentlandi. 



August, 1898.— No. 51, Vol. V. 



Extinct Animals of Malta. 



great strides have been made, and the islands have 

 upon more than one occasion furnished the key to 

 some of the most important problems bearing upon 

 the former physical history of the Mediterranean. 

 In geology especially, the progress made has been 

 most marked. The attention of geologists was first 

 attracted to the islands by the cave discoveries of 

 the late Admiral Spratt and the late Prof. Leith 

 Adams ; and again, at a later period, by the classic 

 work done by Sir John Murray, of the " Challenger," 

 in showing the relationship that existed between 

 the Maltese rocks and the present deep - sea 

 deposits. Geological work on the islands' rocks 

 was rendered all the more interesting owing to 



the differences of 

 opinion that had 

 been expressed as to 

 the division of geo- 

 logical time to which 

 the Maltese strata 

 should be assigned 

 Spratt and Adams 

 considered them as 

 being of Miocene 

 age, but Prof. Rupert 

 Jones referred them 

 to the Eocene. 

 Fuchs, the eminent 

 Austrian geologist, 

 divides them into 

 two parts, the upper 

 of which he calls 

 Miocene and the 

 lower Oligocene. Sir John Murray, while 

 agreeing with Fuchs' view, points out that a 

 striking analogy exists between the microscopic 

 sections of the Globigerina limestones of 

 Malta and the sections of the Pliocene rocks of 

 Sicily. 



During a lengthened residence in the islands 

 extending over many years, I devoted much time 

 to Mediterranean geology, and have thus had an 

 opportunity of personally investigating the material 

 on which my predecessors had based their opinions. 

 Briefly summed up, it may be said that, palaeontolo- 

 gically, the Maltese rocks offer strong resemblances 

 to the Miocene beds of Tournay and Brittany; to 

 the Black Crag of Belgium ; to the Miocene beds 

 of the Vienna Basin ; to those of Dego, Calcaire, 

 Belforte and San Ruffilo in Italy ; the Marine 

 Molasse of Hungary ; the Sotska beds of Styria ; 

 the Pectunculus beds of Hungary, and the 

 Miocene of Sicily and Algeria. 



