OF WESTERN EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN COASTS. 
971 
Spratt and Forbes,^ and Botta also refer to a consolidated beach of recent forma¬ 
tion ; while BoTTAt notices a bone cave on the slopes of the hills near Beyrout, in 
which he found a breccia with numerous bones and some shells, but it is apparently of 
Neolithic age, though he likens the breccia to that of Dalmatia. Mr. J. W. Hamilton;}; 
speaks of a breccia covering the sides of the hills near Cnidus, but does not enter into 
details. 
M. DE Tchihatcheff in his great work§ on Asia Minor remarks that Quaternary 
deposits are much less common than in Europe. He found traces of a Baised Beach 
in the Troad, and again in the Gulf of Smyrna, but the height above the sea-level is 
not given. It contains fragments of pottery.jj Near Mermeridje the limestone cliffs 
are drilled by Pholades at a height of 10 metres above sea level. In the plain of 
Tchoukour are some isolated hills capped by beds of gravel, sand, and clay, containing 
a number of recent marine shells, probably Quaternary, of which a short list is given, 
but without the height above the sea. 
There are detrital deposits of local origin on the slopes of the hills, but 
M. DE Tchihatcheff was uncertain whether they were Quaternary or modern. 
Elsewhere, in speaking of the detrital deposits in the plain of Smyrna, he says that 
they may probably be of the same age as the cave deposits. He remarks on the 
absence of organic remains in the superficial drift of Asia Minor, and on the fact 
that the detritus is always derived from the neighbouring hills, as a reason for 
believing that it is of local origin [forme sur place) when the country had assumed 
its present configuration. 
Although these observations leave much to be desired, they seem to indicate the 
presence of a Rubble-drift and its comparatively recent origin. 
Cyprus. —Monsieur A. Gaudry has shown in a valuable paperIF on the geology of 
this island, that a Raised Beach or seabed [Cordon littoral) of Quaternary age may be 
traced nearly all round the island at a height from 3 to 30 feet above the present sea 
level.'"'* In places it forms a belt of some width, occasionally penetrating up the 
valleys and abutting against hills of Pliocene strata. It consists of shelly sands 
3 to 15 feet thick, with seams of pebbles, frequently agglutinated, and is used, like 
the Panchina of Leghorn, as a building stone. 
* ‘ Travels in Lycia, &c.,’ vol. 2, pp. 164-209 ; 1847. 
t ‘Mem. Soc. Geol. France,’ vol. 1, pp. 148-159 ; 1833. 
I ‘ Proc. Geol. Soc.,’ vol. 3, p. 293 ; 1840. 
§ ‘ Asie Minenre,’ part 4, “ Geologic,” vol. 3, 1869, pp. 382-624. 
II In western Europe it is not certain that any pottery has heen found in beds of Palasolithic age. 
But I see no reason why this should be the case in southern Europe and the coasts of the Mediterranean, 
if, as we advance towards the old centres of civilization in the East, Palaeolithic nvin had there been 
in a more advanced state than in the more western area. 
“ Geologic de Tile de Chypre,” ‘ Mem. Soc. Geol. de France,’ 2nd ser., vol. 7, p. 149, 1859. 
** In places there is apparently a newer upraised beach of recent date. There are also places where 
there has been subsidence within historic times. 
6 H 2 
