BONE-CAVES OF MALTA. 
433 
hitherto been met with in connection with this fossil fauna, or 
in fact any traces of man ; and with the exception of recent 
land- shells and uncertain indications of a ruminant of about 
the size and appearance of the domestic sheep or goat, all 
the fossil fauna are apparently of extinct species — such as 
frequent countries well watered by rivers, lakes, and covered 
by a rich soil and luxuriant vegetation — conditions totally 
different from what the faces of the islands now present. The 
alluvial deposits of the Maltese Islands, like those of the other 
islands and shores of the Mediterranean, are composed of a 
red soil, which, in the rock cavities and hollows, is sometimes 
underlaid by a light-blue clay, in which also organic remains 
are embedded. All the numerous fissures and rents which 
traverse the strata in divers directions are more or less filled 
with the red primeval earth and clay, presenting much the 
same appearances as those of Gibraltar, and by the mode of 
deposition of their contents testify to like agencies having 
conveyed them into these situations. Some years since a cave 
on the face of an inland ravine near the middle of the Island 
of Malta was accidentally intersected whilst forming a water 
reservoir in the sandstone rock, and its contents partially 
cleared out, when among the red soil and clay which covered 
the floor were found many teeth and bones of extinct species of 
elephant, apparently different from any yet discovered, besides 
remains of a large tortoise and birds. Professor Busk and the 
late Dr. Falconer, who have carefully examined these fossils, 
come to the conclusion that the elephantine remains belonged 
to two species of very small size, neither of which exceeded 
five feet in height ; and that many of the bones indicated the 
presence of carnivorous animals from showing the traces of 
having been fiercely gnawed. However, persevering efforts 
made subsequently in many other fossiliferous cavities failed 
entirely in finding any relics of the carnivora. Hot so, how- 
ever, with reference to the Pachyderm ata, for the discovery of 
numerous fissures and gaps, containing abundant remains of 
elephants, have at least proved that whether one or more 
species is included among the exuviae, it is beyond a doubt 
that the numbers that have come to hand could never have 
lived on the present islands, even allowing their botanical 
resources to have quadrupled those of any country on the face 
of the earth, irrespective of the total absence of rivers and 
lakes, yea, as much as a perennial stream. The same may be 
said of the hippopotamus, of which bones and teeth have been 
discovered from time to time in caverns, and always in situa- 
tions indicating that they were conveyed into the openings by 
the agency of water, or else died in incredible numbers in the 
rock cavities and been subsequently buried by the introduction 
