THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
27 
An examination of the geological map, which 
accompanies this paper, will show, that all of the 
faults trend in the same direction. 
The Great Fault, which extends from Madda- 
lena on the north to some distance beyond Fom- 
ir-Rieh on the south, the fault that caused the 
separation of Comino from Malta, the dual faults 
at St. Pauls Bay and Melleha, and most of the 
minor fractures at Marsa Seala, Tignb and Mars- 
el-Forn, will be found to lie in a N. E. and S. W. 
direction. 
The pressure that gave rise to these, seems 
therefore, to have passed along the major axis of 
the islands, that is, in a N. W. and S. E. direction ; J 
and it was exerted at right angles to these faults j 
and in a line with the synclinal foldings. 
To this rule there are two notable exceptions. 
The first is the Malak fault, and the other Is the 
Miggiar Scini and the Dueira faults, both of which 
lie in a direction that is almost at right angles to 
the Great Fault. 
(To he continued.) 
— >000000000 — 
SCIENCE NOTES. 
A project is now on foot for the establish- 
ment of a marine station at Sebastopol, 
which is to be erected on the lines of the 
Zoological station at Naples, though on a 
smaller scale. 
The greatest depth found by Captain, 
Spratt, R,N. in the Western Mediterranean 
basin was between Sicily, Sardinia and 
Africa, where the line showed about 
10,000 feet, fa little over two miles). 
Recent measurements in the Eastern 
basin by Commander Magnaghi of the Ita- 
lian. Navy have yielded as a maximum 
13,556 feet, (nearly 2f miles), between the 
islands of Malta and Candia, 
Cav. G.. Gollcher of Malta has recently 
acquired a magnificent specimen of Tridac- 
na gigas from the Indian seas. It measures 
2 feet 3 inches, bv 1 feet 8 inches, and 
weighs 152 lbs. 
A large quantity of fossil mammalian 
remains belonging to a new fauna has 
recently been obtained from a tertiary 
deposit in Samos — an island in the Turkish 
Archipelago, lying immediately opposite 
the town of Ephesus, and to the south- 
south-west of Smyrna. 
Their discovery has been principally due 
to the labours of Dr. Forsyth- Major, who 
sjient upwards of two years in the explo- 
ration of the Pliocene fauna of Samos, 
during which period he obtained two very 
important collections, one of which is now 
in the Geneva Museum, and the other in 
the British Museum. 
Neither of them has yet been thoroughly 
examined. Among the specimens are a 
number of forms specifically identical with 
Pie mammals from the equivalent deposits 
of Pikermi in Attica, Baltavar in Hungary, 
and Maragha in Persia: and also several 
new' types, of which a large ruminant 
Samotherium is the most remarkable. 
These remains are of much interest 
inasmuch as they afford evidences of a 
I much wider distribution of forms in by- 
gone ages. 
In the course of the excavations at 
Pompeii the bodies of a man and a woman 
were exhumed from a deposit of volcanic 
ash, which was. situate just within the 
Stabian Gate. 
Imbedded in the formation were also 
found the impressions of the branches, 
foliage, and fruit of a tree Laura nobilis, 
the berries of which ripen only towards 
the end of the Autumn. 
The discovery has an important bearing 
on the question of the time of the year at 
which the eruption took place, since it 
tends to show that it was in November, and 
not in August, as it has hitherto been sup- 
posed to have been. 
