OF WESTERN EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN COASTS. 
945 
paralyzed their natural instincts as to have driven those various animals to flock 
together in search of a common place of refuge from a catastrophe which threatened 
all alike. Under such circumstances the Ruminants would naturally flee from the 
plain to the higher hills, and -w^hen these were isolated, as in this and the other cases 
I have named, whenever the waters rose above those hills, they were drowned and 
their limbs dispersed in the manner I have before described. 
The conclusions I would draw from the important paper of Sir A. Ramsay and 
Professor James Geikie, on the Geology of the Rock,* correspond with those formed 
on the palaeontological evidence, though they differ from those of the authors of that 
paper; but I speak with reserve from want of personal knowledge of the ground. 
They describe the superficial deposits as consisting in ascending order of— 
1. An older Limestone-agglomerate. 
2. Bone breccias in caves and fissures. 
3. Raised Beaches and calcareous marine sands. 
4. Alameda and Catalan sands. 
5. A later Limestone-agglomerate. 
Beds 1 and 5 are true breccias, but the authors adopt the term agglomerates for 
these beds, to distinguish them from the bone-breccia of the caves and fissures 
(No. 2). They say: “The oldest (1) of all the superficial accumulations is the 
remarkable agglomerate or breccia which covers so large an area in the district of 
Buena Vista and Rosia, and in the neighbourhood of the South Barracks, Similar 
accumulations are met with in other parts of the Rock; but these, as we shall 
afterwards point out, belong to a later date (5). In caves and fissures, as is 
well known, breccias also occur, but these are distinguished from the others by the 
presence of abundant Mammalian remains.” They proceed to say that this older 
breccia {a', on the left of the sections, fig. 14) is quite unfossiliferous, and rests on 
the main limestone or on the overlying strata. For these reasons they thought it 
“ better to restrict the term breccia to the true cave-and-fissure-accumulations, 
leaving the term agglomerate for the great superficial masses.” 
In the neighbourhood of Rosia and Buena Vista, this agglomerate or breccia 
“ attains a thickness in some places of not less than 100 feet, and occasionally shows 
a well-marked dip, ... as a rule, however, the mass is quite amorphous and devoid of 
stratification. The matrix is sometimes grey, sometimes reddish, and the included 
fragments (of the limestone) are almost invariably quite angular, no rounded waterworn 
stones being visible. The agglomerate is of all degrees of coarseness, the stone vary¬ 
ing in size from mere grit up to blocks 12 feet and more in diameter ;t and larger and 
smaller fragments are all rudely heaped together without the slightest reference to 
* ‘ Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.,’ vol. 34, p. 505. 
t They add, “ Sorae of the larger blocks must weigh 20 or 30 tons at least.” 
MDCCCXCIII.—A. 6 E 
