972 PROFESSOR J. PRESTWICH ON THE EVIDENCES OF A SUBMERGENCE 
This deposit is overlaid in places by a fine sandy bed, like “ Loess,” but in none of 
the sections given by M. Gaudry is there the appearance of an overlying Rubble- 
breccia or “ head.” Only in three sections are breccias figured, and these are inland 
and at no great height, lying at the foot of hills, whence the blocks they contain are 
derived. The matrix is a marl derived also from the adjacent soft Tertiary strata. 
Nor is any mention made of osseous breccias or of fissures with angular detritus, 
which, had they existed, could hardly have escaped M. Gaudry’s notice. I infer 
from these facts that the submergence of this island was comparatively slight, and 
resulted only in a small settlement from the superincumbent turbid waters of the 
Loess-like deposit which covers much of the lower grounds, where it attains in places 
a thickness apparently of about 20 feet. 
Northern Syria .—Near Lattakia, on the coast opposite Cyprus, Dr. Post* * * § discovered 
at a height of 150 to 250 feet above the sea-level, a bed of marine shells, supposed to 
be a Raised Beach ; but in the absence of a list of the shells, its exact age cannot be 
settled. It may correspond with the Pliocene beds of Cyprus. 
Palestine .—Amongst the incidental geological notices of Canon Tristra^iI are 
some bearing upon the question before us. In passing over the promontory south of 
Beyrout, he found a mass of bone breccia with fragments of “ flint chips ” in crevices 
in the limestone rock, some feet above the level of the road, but below the level of the 
old Egyptian track. He traced this bed for a distance of about 120 feet, and it 
probably extended as far as the face of the cliffs, as blocks of hard breccia with bones 
were found on the shore. The Canon describes the flints as “ elongated chips with 
sharp edges” (flakes), and says that the teeth were referred by Professor Boyd 
Dawkins to Bison, probably Red Deer or Reindeer, and Elh. He was of opinion that 
this breccia formed the flooring of an ancient cavern, but his description agrees as well 
with the characters of an ossiferous breccia or of breccia on a slope. The height above 
sea-level is not mentioned. 
Allusion is frequently made to the stones of all sizes, from small gravel to large 
blocks—all aiigular or but slightly worn—scattered over the surface of the country. 
Canon Tristram also alludes to the huge hillocks of a soft conglomerate, quite unlike 
sedimentary beds, containing land shells of existing species, which fringe the plain of 
the Jordan and stud the sides of the valleys under the hills, but he refers these to 
freshwater floodings from the Upper Jordan. 
The geology of Palestine has been the subject of special investigation by M. Louis 
Lartet| and Professor E. Hull.§ They inform us that raised beaches or sea-beds 
* ‘ Nature,’ for August, 1884. 
t ‘The Laud of Israel,’ London, 1865. 
J ‘ Essai sur la Geologie de la Palestine,’ Paris, 1869, pp. 224-290. 
§ ‘The Sui’vej of Western Palestine: Memoir on the Geology aud Physical Geography,’ 1886, 
pp. 69-90. 
