THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
211 
The men to whom they formerly belonged were 
evidently carnivorous. They fed on fish, fruit, 
and flesh, the products of the chase, but though 
they clad themselves in hides they had no notions 
of the manufacture of earthenware. 
The skulls assigned to the neolithic age are 
far more numerous. Several specimens were 
found in a cavern at Arene Candide near Final- 
marina in Liguria (Issel), in the cavern of Mafia 
near Savona (Deo Gratias), in the caves of Cal- 
vanisetta (Mina Palumbo e Fiorino), in the caves 
of Monte Tignoso (Gastaldi, Cocchi, Zampa, Strozi), 
in the caves of Vecchiano in Pisano (D Achiardo) 
at St. Ilario d’ Enza (Chierici) and at Cantalupo 
near Tivoli (Ponzi e Rossi). Most of the skulls 
were dolicocephals and brachicefals, and in com- 
parison with the archeolitic they are more deve- 
loped and present typical modifications that seem 
to indicate that they belonged to a new race 
that immigrated into Europe. 
These neolithic men worked instruments of 
stone, lived in edifices erected in the open, built 
fences for protection and by insensible degrees 
merged their customs into those of the people 
who seem to have been constantly migrating into 
the peninsula at the commencement of the bronze 
age. 
To the bronze epoch belong the notes that have 
been described by various authors as well as the 
rock tombs, the megalithic ruins, -the cromlechs 
or circles of stone and the nuraghi. The Author 
gives a short description of each of these and j 
then proceeds to give details of the skulls that 
have been found in Italy and assigned to the 
bronze age. 
Of these two were found in the Tower of Maina 
(Nicolueci); three were found in a grave in the 
island of Elba (Foresi), and one at Valcuvia 
(Maggo). These specimens are of various forms, 
the last being mesaticephal, but in all of them 
a much greater development is noticeable in their 
cranial capacity when compared with those belong- 
ing to the other epochs. 
The iron age the author considers as belonging to 
the historical period and he does not therefore 
mention it. In conclusion he points out the gra.r 
dual typical and intellectual development that 
these evidences prove prehistoric man in Italy to 
have undergone. The type which diverges in the 
greatest degree from that of modern man in 
Italy is that which has been found in the later 
deposits of the Quarternay epoch and this con- 
tinued to our own times. 
In the neolithic epoch the geographical dis- 
tribution of race, was similar to that which now 
exists that is: — 
Barchicefals in Southern Italy. 
Dolicocephals in lower Italy, 
and Mixed in Elba, Umbria and central Italy. 
The Fathomed Depths of Ocean. 
It was held by Maury, once the supreme au- 
thority upon oceanography, that the ocean might 
be as much as eight or nine miles deep, but recent 
investigations show that the mean depth of all the 
seas cannot be more than 2,500 fathoms. The 
deepest soundings yet taken are 4,655 fathoms off 
the northeast coast of Japan, one of 4,575 fathoms 
south of the Ladrones, and a third of 4,561 fathoms 
north of Porto Rico, far from St. Thomas. The 
greatest depth found in the North Atlantic is 4,561 
fathoms, and none as great has been met with in 
the South Atlantic. No part of the Mediterranean 
is known to be more than 2,150 fathoms deep, and 
the maximum depth determined in the Indian 
Ocean is 3,199 fathoms. The polar basin seems to 
grow shallow toward the North Pole, until at a 
point within four miles of the most northern ever 
reached, Capt. Markham found bottom at 72 
fathoms. 
The Relationship of the Structure of 
Rocks to the conditions of their 
Formation. 
By H. J. Johnston La vis, m.d. 
Intrusion of Igneous Matter into Porous Aqui- 
ferous Strata . — The same results as in the last 
case may be looked for, but we shall see that su- 
perposed upon them there is another series of far 
greater importance. Let us suppose the fissure 
formed, injected, and that a salband has solidified. 
The water in the immediate neighbourhood will 
tend to increase in temperature until it arrives at 
the same degree as that of the lava, since in most 
cases the enormous superincumbent pressure will, 
