164 
THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
First and foremost, to properly grapple with 
the questions that arise demands the possession of 
a sound mechanical instinct. A theoretical ac- 
quaintance with mechanics, though absolutely 
essential, is of itself insufficient. A real living 
acquaintance with the sort of forces to be dealt 
with, bom of a long practical struggle with me- 
chanical difficulties, seems to me not less requisite. 
Chief of all, however, is it necessary to study the 
phenomena of nature, not only in the field but in 
the works of those geologists who have devoted 
themselves to the unravelling of the earth’s secrets. 
The successful investigator must sail very close to 
the facts of nature; he must never lose sight of 
them but continually square his theories with them. 
Nothing is easier than to elaborate a system of 
cosmogony in the closet, starting from some s imj be 
axiom; but a theorist of this kind very soon parts 
company with fact and nature, and sails off on an 
imaginary cruise on his own account. Like Fuseli, 
the painter, who is represented to have said of 
himself — “Nature puts me out.” such a theorist 
draws his pictures, and eventually his facts also, 
from the stores of his inner consciousness. Our 
theories should be explanations of what we see, 
not a priori possibilities. 
It is the great glory of geology that it brings 
into strong action common sense and sound judg- 
ment, and it has always seemed to me to be a 
science specially adapted to the English, mind. 
Be this as it may, there is scope in it for 
the profoundest practical and theoretical know- 
ledge. 
The more w T e labour the more oppressive the j 
feeling of our own inefficiency becomes; but, at 
the same time, if progress be slow there is great 
satisfaction in feeling that one has contributed a 
stone or two to the great cairn of truth. Whether 
such contributions are contained in these articles 
it will be for time and the labour of others to tell. 
The investigations upon which they are founded 
have, at all events, enlarged my own horizon and 
given me a clearer conception of some' of the 
processes of nature; and, if this be the case, 
I venture to hope that others also may derive 
sorhe benefit from following the same mental j 
processes. 
The Soil of the Maltese Islands. 
The soil of the Maltese Islands has, from the 
earliest times, enjoyed the reputation of being 
accounted among the most fertile of any district 
in the Mediterranean. 
The cloths made by the Phoenicians and Carthi- 
ginians from cotton grown in the islands had a 
world-wide repute; and the writings of Lucretius, 
Siiius Italicus, and Cicero give us a very vivid 
idea of the estimation in which the cloths made in 
their time were held by the sumptuous Romans. 
The great increase in the population of the 
islands in modern times, and the increasing de- 
mands that are therefore made on the soil to pro- 
vide sustenance for the people, have taxed its 
resources to the uttermost; but as far as can be 
judged by the quantity and quality of the crops 
that are grown, its fertility is in nowise diminished 
a fact that is no doubt due to the inexhaustible 
store of phosphates and other plant feeding mine- 
rals contained in the islands’ strata. Among the 
Maltese there is a prevalent opinion that the soil 
of the islands is not indigeneous, but that it was 
brought here from Sicily in the time of the 
Knights. 
The incorrectness of this view will be at once 
apparent to all who will take the trouble to com- 
pare the composition of the soils with that of the 
rocks upon which they lie. 
Mr. O. Chadwick writing to Dr. John Murray 
gives a most ingenious demonstration against the 
theory in the course of which he says,” The theory 
of importation does not, to my mind, appear to be 
probable. 
It may be that some Grand Master imported 
some ship-loads of soil, though no difference is to 
be observed between any of the lands of the order, 
and others in the neighbourhood. If we suppose 
that out of 95 square miles which form the area of 
Malta, not more than 10 are covered with red soil 
to a depth of one foot six inches then we have 
^ goo _ 15 } 488,000 cubic yards; at 200 
cubic yards to a ship-load this gives 77,440 ship- 
loads, or one ship a day for two centuries all of 
which must have loaded at or near the same place 
at Marsala, where I observe that a similar soil 
overlies an apparently similar formation. 
