BONE- CAVES OP MALTA. 
435 
all the land quadrupeds more or less alike (which is extremely 
improbable)^ there is seemingly but one way of accounting for 
such wholesale destruction of life; and that is from a considera- 
tion of the geological changes in the outline of the area. Again, 
the elephantine remains and those of the rodent, birds, rep- 
tiles, and land shells, met with together, in the fissures of 
Malta, display the same pell-mell arrangement, only the frag- 
ments of rocks are very little water-worn. A large gap had 
evidently been the bed of a torrent, for whole skeletons of 
elephants and numbers of the dormouse were found jammed 
between large water-worn blocks of sandstone, arranged in 
layers across the ravine, and alternating with bands of pebbles 
and red soil, the former representing freshets or inundations, 
the latter periods of less turbulence. Many of the bones, both 
in the gaps and fissures, presented the same sun-cracked 
appearances as are indicated by the Gibraltar specimens, 
showing that they had been lying exposed and bleaching on 
the surface before being conveyed into the fissures and gaps. 
In one of the latter, the maximum length of which did not exceed 
100 feet, and its greatest breadth 40 feet, were discovered, teeth 
of at least 150 individual elephants, representing every stage 
of growth from the unworn tooth-crown of the calf to that of 
the aged, not to speak of countless remains of the gigantic 
dormouse and birds. Thus the former of these rich cavities 
and alluvial deposits may represent widely remote epochs in 
the history of the ancient post-Miocene Malta, which doubtless 
at one time spread far and wide along the central portion of the 
Mediterranean basin. The hippopotamus conglomerates cave 
and the torrent bed deposits may have been accumulated 
before any very extensive submergence of the area took place ; 
whilst the disordered and pell-mell arrangement of the con- 
tents of the fissures might indicate a far more modern epoch, 
when many of the great changes of level had already resulted, 
and the land was broken up in small islands, and severed from 
Africa or Europe. Supposing Malta or Sicily had been joined 
to either continent, or even formed one or more large islands ; 
that the land began to sink, at first slowly, but in some parts 
more quickly than others, cutting off portions and forming 
islands, and thus contracting the range and decreasing the 
subsistence of numerous animals ; also thereby diverting the 
channels of rivers and lakes, which flooded the low lands and 
swept the soil and carcases of myriads of living creatures, 
which had been either killed or died of starvation or other- 
wise, into gaping fissures and caverns ; no doubt many of the 
smaller accumulations may be the results of ordinary causes 
continued for ages ; but the extensive destruction of life 
represented by many of these caverns and fissures can scarcely, 
