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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW, 
exception of tlie rabbit remains, which were abundant at all 
levels ; and even at present, along the drainage hollows on 
the rock, bones of such quadrupeds as the fox, hare, rabbit, 
mice, &c., are being conveyed by rain-water into fissures, and 
with the red soil and fragments of rock form the well-known 
long breccias of Gibraltar. 
Several of the long bones of deer discovered in the fissures 
bore marked traces of sharp instruments, and from the abun- 
dance of ibex remains it may be surmised that either the 
ruminants were exceedingly common on the rock, or had been 
conveyed there by man, who lived, in all probability, in certain 
of the sea-board caves, such as the one already referred to ; 
moreover, that the canine * and feline quadrupeds preyed on 
the ruminants and others, and possibly all, from the rhinoceros 
downwards, were eaten and destroyed by the savages who 
continued for ages to frequent the district. The decided race 
character of the skulls discovered by Captain Brome, and the 
strange, ill-shapen, and ape-like cranium alluded to above, 
may represent vast ages of man^s sojourn on the Spanish 
peninsula, and whilst the former may have lived on the rock 
up to a comparatively modern period, the latter would repre- 
sent a far earlier epoch ; yet perhaps coeval with the extinct 
rhinoceros and Elejphas antiques — a tooth of the latter having 
been discovered several years since on Europa point. The 
subterranean movements which occasioned the submergence 
of the intervening land between Africa and Europe, and 
opened the Straits, must have taken place long after the 
exuviae had been deposited ; for how could the present bare 
rock have maintained such vast numbers of wild animals as 
are represented by the Gibraltar fissures? 
The disturbances to which the Maltese Islands have been 
subjected during periods of upheaval and depression are like- 
wise attested by numerous and well-defined faults and dis- 
placements. These and indications of sea action on the rock- 
surfaces, also fossil exuviae of extinct and recent animals in 
their caves, fissures, and alluvial deposits, represent also different 
epochs in the history of the islands, and show at least, what- 
ever may have been the dimensions of the land in the first 
instance, that the present insular group are but mere fragments 
of what must at one time have been an extensive area, in all 
probability connected with Africa or Europe, or both. Com- 
pared with Gibraltar, the same evidences of littoral action are 
presented on their rock-surfaces, and their fissures show a 
like arrangement of their contents ; but the organic remains 
differ in some very important points. ISTo human exuviae have 
* Coprolites of the hyena were abundant in the fissures. 
