1893.] 



Submergence of Western Europe, fyc. 



85 



over the lower slopes of tlie Rock on both sides. On the western side 

 it attains a thickness of 100 feet, and is projected 550 yards seaward 

 at an angle of 9°. It is clearly not a tains, nor is it a cone of 

 dejection. Sir Andrew Ramsay and Professor James Geikie referred 

 its origin to two periods of severe cold and snow slides. The objection 

 to this is the great volume of the detritus, the size of some of the 

 blocks (some being 12 feet in diameter), and the distance to which it 

 is projected compared to the very limited snow-collecting surface, 

 1400 feet in height, and the small angle of slope. The remarkable 

 Ossiferous Fissures of Gibraltar, which are placed by the authors 

 between the two agglomerates or breccia — referred by them to 

 different periods — contain remains of three species of Fells, of Hyaena, 

 Bear, Rhinoceros, Wild Boar, Ibex, Ox, Horse, Deer, Hare. The bones 

 are, as usual, much broken and splintered, and none belonged to 

 one entire skeleton. A human molar and some worked flint flakes 

 w r ere also found. 



It has been suggested that the remains are those of animals that 

 had lived and died on the Rock, and were afterwards washed into the 

 fissures by heavy rains. But this is difficult to conceive, and besides, 

 there is the same incompatibility in the habits and resorts of the animals 

 thus associated as in the other fissures before mentioned. The Hycence, 

 Felidw, and Bears might have frequented the dens and crags of the 

 Rock, but the Deer, Bovidoe, Horse, and others could only have lived 

 in the surrounding plains, and it has not been suggested that they 

 were carried there by the Carnivora. A great and common danger 

 alone could have driven together the animals of the plains and of 

 the crags and caves. As the Rock was upheaved the divergent 

 currents swept down on both sides of the Rock the debris of the 

 limestone, disintegrated by the previous long glacial cold, together 

 with the scattered animal remains ; and that the propelling force 

 was great, and, consequently, the rise rapid, is shown by the distance 

 to which the breccia extends from the base of the Rock. The scale 

 is different, and the materials are different, but in all essential respects 

 the phenomena are analogous to those presented by the "head" at 

 Brighton and at Sangatte. There is the same restriction to local 

 debris with blocks, the same absence of wear, the same traces of rude 

 bedding, and the same occasional presence of Mammalian remains. 

 AH this points to a common origin. 



Sicily. — Traces of similar phenomena are shown to exist in Sardinia, 

 Corsica, Italy, and the coast of Dalmatia. The remarkable caves of 

 Sicily next arrest attention from the extraordinary quantity of bones 

 of Hippopotami (belonging to hundreds of individuals) which were 

 found in connexion with them. Twenty tons of these bones were 

 shipped from the cave of San Ciro, near Palermo, within the first six 

 months of working, and they were so fresh that they were sent to 



