962 PROFESSOR J. PRESTWICK OK THE EVIDENCES OF A SUBMERGENCE 
a plain as that of Palermo. It needed then to have had much greater extent and 
larger rivers. I have shown that the present height of the Raised Beaches on the 
English Coast does not give the initial upheaval, but is the sum of the differences 
of several earth-movements—that the primary upheaval of the beaches was not less 
than 100 to 150 feet greater than the altitude at which they now stand, and that 
this led to the conversion of a considerable extent of the area of the Bristol and 
English Channels into dry land. What little evidence we have on the coast of Malta 
(postea, p. 965), and of Greece,* points to similar elevations of the coasts of the 
Mediterranean, so that large tracts of dry land may then have existed between the 
Sicilian and Italian shores, and formed suitable pasture grounds for the Hippopotami. 
With increase of the land area, so would the rivers also have had increased size, and 
though they may not have been very large, yet as Sir S. Baker has shown, perennial 
waters are not indispensable to the Hippopotamus, for in the Settite and other rivers 
of the Soudan, these huge animals tide over the dry season, by resorting to the few 
pools left in the dried-up channels of the rivers. 
On this interpretation of the origin of the San Ciro breccia, the reason of the 
uncertainty as to its position relatively to the cave deposits, felt by Falconer and 
Christie, becomes apparent, for it is obvious that in that case it was formed subse¬ 
quently to the cave bone-breccia, and fronts the deposits in the same way that the 
angular rubble (“ Argile a blocaux”) masked the “ Trou du Frontal” {ante, fig. 12). 
Malta. —There does not appear to be any well-marked Raised Beach on this island, 
but of bone-caves of the same age as those of Sicily there are several, and their contents 
are of a very remarkable character. The independence of the caves and the ossiferous 
breccia of Malta is also more clearly shown than in Sicily. These caves have been 
described by Dr. Leith Adams,! Admiral Spratt,| Dr. Falconer,§ and Mr. G. Bijsk.|| 
The island, which is extremely bare, consists entirely of Tertiary strata, covered 
by a red earth, derived partly from their decomposition. The drift beds lie on the 
slopes and in the valleys. The island is hilly, but there are no hill ranges like 
those of Sicily, the greatest heights being under 800 feet. 
It is not necessary to give any descriptions of the caves, as they are to be found in 
the memoirs quoted, but I may give the list of the remarkable cave fauna, which 
was in occupation of the island at the time of the Rubble-drift. The variation of 
* MM. Boblaye and Vielet mention the occnrrence of a submarine cliff off the Greek Coast. 
t ‘The Nile Valley and Malta,’ pp. 161-238, 1870; and vanions papers in ‘ Geol. Mag.,’ and in 
‘ Reports, Brit. Assoc.’ 
t “On the Bone Caves near Crendi Zebbug and Melliha,” ‘ Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.,’ vol. 23, p. 283. 
It was in these that the dwarf Hippopotamus and pigmy Elephant were first discovered. 
§ ‘ Paleontological Memoirs,’ vol. 2, p. 292. 
II ‘ Trans. Zool. Soc.,’ vol. 6, p. 119. See also a short notice by Professor F. W. Hutton, in ‘ Geol. 
Mag.,’ vol. 3. p. 145 ; and Dr. John Muekay’s “ The Maltese Islands,” in ‘ Scottish Geographical Mag.’ 
for September, 1890, p. 449. 
