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FQPIJLAB SCIENCE REVIEW. 
ON THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE IONIAN 
ISLANDS. 
EY PROFESSOR D. T. ANSTED, M.A., F.R.S. 
Part I. 
T HE group of islands adjacent and nearly parallel to the 
shores of Albania and Greece that are known as the 
Ionian islands, may be regarded as the summits of a nearly 
submerged mountain chain, parallel to the Pindus, and having 
a similar geological axis. The islands may well be regarded 
as a group, for they all exhibit nearly the same class of phe- 
nomena, and nearly in the same way. The principal rock is 
everywhere a peculiar limestone, very easily acted on by the 
weather. This limestone is seen partly in its normal state as 
a rock in situ, but more frequently broken into innumerable 
fragments. It is also presented as a conglomerate, or re- 
composed rock, made up of fragments, either angular or rolled 
by water, cemented by carbonate of lime, and mixed with 
many flints. With the limestones are marls locally abundant, 
and some marly sands, while gypsum occasionally takes the 
place of carbonate of lime. The islands afford a great variety 
of scenery, and are a perfect study to the artist, the geologist, 
and the physical geographer of all that is most interesting in 
lime rock. There are caverns in abundance, rocky cliffs, pecu- 
liar kettle-shaped valleys, mountain chains, ridges, plateaux, 
and rocky ravines. The alternations of softer rock and marl, 
though few and local, are not without importance as contrasting 
with the limestone. 
Geologically, the axis consists of the Scaglia, or Apennine 
limestone, often loaded with flints, and nearly of the age of 
our chalk. It is sometimes made up of those peculiar fossils 
the Rudistas, of which the Hippurite is a familiar genus. This 
is flanked by a great thickness of tertiary limestone, partly of 
the olden period, and containing fishes like those of Monte 
Bolca ; partly more modern, and in many places consisting of 
a very modern conglomerate formed under water, but now 
lifted at a steep angle, parts of it being more than two thou- 
sand feet above the level of the Mediterranean. There is, 
besides this, a much newer sub-aerial conglomerate now 
forming, but already of great thickness in certain localities. 
