964 PROFESSOR J. PRESTWICH ON THE EVIDENCES OF A SUB^IERGENCE 
Eats, scattered about on the surface, had been suddenly swept pell-mell into the 
gaping rent ” with the detrital matter of the rocks. In the Shantiin fissure upwards 
of fourteen Elephant molars were discovered, while the Gandia fissure was estimated 
to contain the remains of no fewer than sixteen individual Elephants. The breccia is 
coloured red by the red earth derived from the hill tops, and is generally cemented by 
carbonate of lime, like the Gibraltar and Nice breccias. 
Elsewhere Dr. Adams says that some of the bones have the appearance of having 
been partially devoured by Carnivorous animals, but the specimens in question are 
uncertain as no particulars are given, and they may have been derived from the old 
bone caves. 
The Mnaidra and Berghisa gaps seem to be more in the nature of pot-holes or 
depressions in the surface, into which the local detritus and carcasses of animals had 
been swept. There, “ among the large blocks of freestone, either impacted or strewn 
in a heterogeneous manner were lying seemingly entire skeletons of Elephants, some 
of the skulls and jaws furnishing good evidence of the rough usage they had sustained 
by being broken and crushed flat by blocks, which, with the force of impact, had 
cracked the others on which they had impinged.” Dr. Adams also mentions that at 
these places seams of rolled pebbles are intermingled with the breccia. These may 
have been derived from an old watercourse or beach. 
Admiral Spratt and Dr. Adams both notice the large accumulation of angular 
and sub-angular debris in red earth at the mouths of the valleys, and on the slopes of 
some of the hills. One such bed of special interest is to be seen at Malak, on the 
south coast of Malta, where for some miles a steep escarpment, 200 to 300 feet high, 
formed by an old line of fault, fronts the sea. The lower part of this escarpment 
is covered by a red breccia, hidden in places by a modern talus, sloping down to the 
water’s edge, where it forms steep banks that are being gradually worn away by 
the waves. In this breccia, which consists of red earth derived from the hills above, 
and of angular and worn fragments of the overhanging calcareous sandstone and 
lower limestone, several molars and part of the skull of a Pigmy Elephant were 
found in situ* Dr. Adams has given a sketch and section of these cliflFs, of which 
the following diagram-section (fig. 22) is a reduction. 
The breccia bears a close similarity to the Bubble-drift or “ head ” over the 
“ Raised Beaches ” in the English Channel. There is the same local origin t of the 
detritus with remains of the animals then in occupation of the land. The main 
difference is that at Brighton and Sangatte the old cliffs are low, so that they are 
entirely masked by the rubble, whereas the escarpment at Malak is so high, that the 
* In addition, Professor Hutton mentions Szis, Arvicola, and land sliells; ‘ Geol. Mag.,’ vol. 3, 
p. 145, 1866. 
t Dr. Adams supposed that fragments of a black limestone, found in the breccia, -were foreign to the 
island, but Mr, Cooke has recently shown that a bed of this character does exist in the Lower Coralhne 
Limestone; ‘Geol. Mag.’ for August, 1892, p. 361. 
