THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
The details of the physical characters and sur- 
roundings of the gorge and cave, as well as of the 
most interesting fauna which was discovered 
within their precints are given at length in the 
report which I made to the Royal Society; and it 
will therefore only be necessary upon the present 
occasion for me to allude to their more salient 
features. (T) 
From the particulars which I have given in that 
report it will be seen that the deposits of the cave 
belong to two distinct epochs each of which is 
characterized by a special fauna. In the lower 
series were found the remains of Ursos arctos, Hip- 
popotami pentlandi, Elephas mnadraensis and a 
few remains of Cervus barbarus) while the upper 
layers were found to abound with the remains of 
several species of deer, rolled and broken fragments 
of hippo which had been derived from the under- 
lying beds and land-shells of living and extinct 
species. They also contained numerous fragments 
of a rude, coarse kind of pottery, a stone imple- 
ment, and the metacarpal bone of a human 
skeleton. 
It is probable, therefore, that the fragments of 
hippo bones to which Issel alluded in his paper as 
presenting the appearance of having been roasted 
were some pieces that had been derived from the 
underlying beds, which at this point of the cave 
are six feet in thickness; and that were afterwards 
deposited with and embedded in that portion of 
the bed upon which the fire was lit. It was to this 
that they owed their charred appearance. 
The stone implement referred to, I found in 
the upper portion of the deposits of Trench VI, 
and in the same part of the cave in which Issel 
conducted his investigation. The order in which 
the beds lie in this excavation is as follows: — 
In that year I commenced a series of excavations 
in the course of which some valuable and 
interesting evidences bearing on the character 
of the early Maltese settlers were obtained. 
( 1 ) Cooke J. II. 1 11 The Har Dalam Cavern and 
its ossiferous contents .” 
Cooke J. H. “ On the occurrence, of Ursus arctos 
in the Malta Pleistocene Geol. Mag. Dec, 1892. 
317 
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fa. A layer of loose, rounded boulders and 
pebbles of Lower Coralline Limestone 
having a maximum thickness of two feet. 
The stones had evidently been thrown in 
to this part of the cave when the entrance 
was cleared for the purpose of making a 
goat-shelter. 
b. Present cave floor consisting of a light, 
marly soil, nine inches in thickness and 
containing numerous land-shells, roots of 
plants, limpet shells, a shell of a cerithium 
and the vertebrae of a small fish. 
c. A stratified layer of rounded boulders 
intermixed with a gray marly loam con- 
taining an abundance of land-shells. 
d. A friable marly loam with a few water- 
worn pebbles, and a considerable quanti- 
ty of entire antlers, jaws, and limb-bones 
of Cervus barbarus, together with 
fragments of very rude pottery and a 
stone implement. 
A layer of indurated, light grey loam 
containing a few broken antlers, teeth and 
bones of C. barbarus, five canines and a 
jaw of Ursus arctos, and vertebrae and 
limb-bones of Hippo pentlandi. 
A layer one foot, six inches in thickness 
similar in composition to e. but still more 
indurated. Molars, portions of tusks, and 
limb-bones of hippo were found lying at 
the base of this layer, on the original rock 
^ floor of the cavern. 
It was at the base of d. and immediately over- 
lying e., a depth of two feet three inches from the 
present cave floor that the implement (l).was found 
in association with several fragments of coarse 
pottery. A similar kind of pottery was also found 
distributed throughout d. associated with the 
remains of cervus: but it is a significant fact that 
no pottery or other evidences indicative of the 
presence of man were found below the line of de- 
marcation which separated d and e. The tool is near- 
ly rhomboidal in section, its diameters measuring 
respecting 2 inches and 1^ inches; and the length 
of its cutting edge if in. 
(1 ) Dr. A. A. Caruana, who has had an oppor- 
tunity of examining it, is of opinion that it has 
undoubtedly been fashioned by man. 
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