OF WESTERN EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN COASTS. 975 
Oran. —MM. Bayle and Ville"^ give a short list of the shells (all recent) found in 
the Raised Beach on this part of the coast, and state that Quaternary drifts are 
largely developed in the province, but the particulars given are insufficient to identify 
the several stages, though the presence of a detrital drift is indicated. Nor is there 
any very definite account of the Ossiferous breccia discovered in the fissures in that 
neighbourhood. It is said to present the same characters as those of Nice and 
Gibraltar, and contain the remains of Bear, Ox, Horse, and several ruminants.t 
This is probably the breccia referred to by M. Bevou, who says that the rocks at 
Santon, near Oran, are traversed in all directions by enormous fissures filled with 
breccia and a few bones. He also states that the adjacent cliffs of Tertiary black 
limestone are drilled at a height of aSout 100 metres by boring shells, whilst, at 
Arzeii, there is a raised beach, 16 to 20 feet above the sea-level, remarkable for the 
profusion of shells, and in places concreted into a hard mass. This beach is overlaid 
by a breccia comyjosed of fragments of slate and limestone. The thickness of these 
beds, which, from description of a section near Oran, would seem to correspond with 
the Raised Beaches and “ Head” of our south coast, is not given. 
Mr. Maw mentions, on the authority of Canon Tristram, that on the coast, to the 
west of Oran, there is a series of raised concreted sea-beaches, at heights of 200 to 
600 feet. From fragments found in one of these, at a height of 400 feet. Dr. Gwyn 
Jeffreys determined Pecten oyjercularis, Pectuncidus glycimeris, Cardium edule, 
Venus gallica. Turbo rugosus, and Fusus comieus, all common Mediterranean and 
Quaternary species.^ Mr. Maw also remarks upon a fact he had noticed on the 
coast-lines of Morocco, Corsica, and the Riviera, “that the hill- and valley-system of 
the land shelves under the adjacent sea without the intervention of distinct escarp¬ 
ments, indicating as he believes that the existing coast-level is so recent that the sea 
has not yet had time to excavate a cliff-boundary.”§ 
Algeria. —In the important governmental work of scientific research in Algeria, M. 
Renou|| gives a few interesting particulars of the Quaternary beds. He mentions 
that there are several lines of sea-levels—one in particular, general all along the coast, 
is marked by a horizontal belt 1 foot broad of holes drilled by boring shells, and 
about 5 feet above the present sea-level. Another bed is composed of a gray clay full 
of Cardium edule and other recent species, with a few fragments of pottery in places, 
and is about 20 feet above sea-level. This bed is covered by a thickness of 150 
to 180 feet of dunes. The higher sea-levels are not described. 
At a height of 132 metres, a bone cave was discovered, the entrance to which was 
* ‘Ball. Soc. Geol. Prance,’ 2nd ser., vol. 11, p. 505, 1854. 
t Desnotees in C. D’Orbignt’s ‘ Diet. d’Hist. Nat.,’ vol. 6, p. 383. 
X He states that remains of Pleistocene animals had been found in the neighbourhood of Algiers, but 
only mentions Bubalus antiquus, which was found in rearranged debris of Tertiary beds. 
§ ‘ Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.,’ vol. 30, p. 106. 
II ‘Exploration Scientifique de I’Algerie,’ Paris, 1846; ‘ Geologic,’ par M. E. Renou. 
