former existence of several other caverns more or less shallow and open, more particularly on the west side, as shown in the sketch (fig. 1). None, however, contain any stalagmitic floor, or present any indication of bone breccia; and although generally wider and higher than the Maghlak Cavern, none of them penetrated so far inwards, except one, of very great interest, lying about 100 yards on the east side, between the Maghlak quarry and the lowest of the Phoenician temples of Crendi above alluded to, which has been very recently opened by Dr. Adams (see sketch), and found by him to be of such importance, from the special character of the larger mammalian remains, being those of Elephants* and not of Hippopotamus, as to have induced the British Association to grant to him the sum of £30 for its exploration; the results, as far as obtained, will therefore, I believe, form the subject of a Report by Dr. Adams.

Having proceeded to the Maghlak Quarry soon after the discovery of the bone-cavern within it, in company with my friend, W. Medlycott, Esq., we were shown numerous large blocks of its stalagmitic flooring, mingled with the talus of débris that had recently been ejected from the quarry, down the sea face of the scarp lying under it, and also upon a narrow natural terrace existing about halfway down. After some labour with our hammers amongst the blocks of bone-breccia found lying upon the talus, and upon this lower terrace, we were enabled to procure from them a few perfect teeth, and some nearly perfect tusks of the Hippopotamus; but from the extreme hardness of the stalagmitic bone-breccia, and the friable nature of the teeth, they in general crumble to chips under the heavy blow of the hammer necessary to fracture the hard matrix in which they are imbedded. The bones and teeth, however, were very numerous throughout these detached and fragmentary blocks, and showed that the remains of a large number of these animals were originally accumulated in the cavern, but indiscriminately, and that they consisted chiefly of the smaller bones of this mammal.

From close examination of the numerous fragments of bonebreccia, we were enabled to perceive that the flooring of the cavern consisted of two distinct layers of fossil bones. The lower, which must have been in some parts fully 3 and 4 feet thick, and composed of an indurated, brownish, stalagmitic clay, almost as hard as flint or jasper, contained in abundance well-rounded pebbles of the native rock, intermixed with the bones and teeth of the Hippopotamus; but these bones and teeth were not in general waterworn, as were the pebbles and shingle found with them; and consequently they were introduced into the cavern after its shingle floor had been raised above the surf-action of a surrounding sea, which no doubt produced both the caverns, and also rounded the pebbles, since there is no evidence or good reason to infer that either this cavern or the neighbouring caves on nearly the same level require any local river to account for their origin and position.

On comparing these teeth and tusks, immediately afterwards, with figures in Pictet's Paléontologie,' I was led to refer them to the * Geological Magazine, vol. ii, p, 490,

Hippopotamus, which conjecture was confirmed by Prof. Owen on the exhibition of the teeth in the Geological Society's rooms in 1859; and moreover they were then identified by him as the same species as that found so abundantly in the bone-caves near Palermo and in other parts of Sicily, viz. H. Pentlandi. These large mammalian remains were overlain by a bed of similar stalagmite of one foot or more in thickness, but without fossils, showing a period during which the Hippopotamus had become extinct; and this was succeeded by another stalagmitic bone-bed containing abundantly the bones and teeth of a Rodent, named Myoxus Melitensis by Dr. Falconer. Besides the Rodent bones, there were also the bones of Birds. From the fragments of the flooring scattered with the débris under the quarry, this upper stalagmitic crust enclosing the Rodent and Bird remains was seen to have varied in thickness from 6 or 8 inches to a foot or more in some parts of the cavern.

On ascending to the quarry to learn from the quarrymen more of the nature of the cavern when first discovered, we were informed that it did not extend inwards more than about 40 or 50 feet from the face of the cliff; and at about that distance from it, within the quarry, we were shown a portion of its stalagmitic flooring still in situ, forming what appeared to have been the termination of a narrow recess at the inner end of the cavern. This fragment of bonebreccia in situ exhibited the same arrangement as above described from the débris of fragments ejected from the quarry; that is, the Hippopotamus-remains were entirely confined to the lower stratum, and the Rodent and Bird-bones, with land shells of living species, to the upper; but it was composed at this part in situ of about a foot of thinly stratified stalagmitic layers, with red earth or clay between them, whence I swept up several handfuls of the fragments of Bird-bones, and of the teeth and bones of the Rodent Myoxus Melitensis, so named by Dr. Falconer, and described in a letter to me soon afterwards as a Dormouse of twice or thrice the size of the existing species.

III. THE ZEBBUG OSSIFEROUS Cavern.

Two years subsequent to the discovery of the bone-cave near Crendi, another of more startling interest was discoverd, in the centre of the island, near the large town of Zebbug. It was accidentally struck upon in sinking an excavation for a tank, upon the upper of the two terraces forming the garden of Signor Buttegieg, on the north side of the rocky valley separating the towns of Zebbug and Seggieni. The excavation for the tank had reached a depth of 10 or 12 feet in the native rock, when the roof of the cavern was suddenly broken into, and it was found filled to the top with clay; and as it was much narrower than the intended diameter of the tank, the excavation of the rock was continued down to the floor of the cavern, viz. about 5 feet lower, thus separating the outer portion of the cavern from its inner, as shown in the following ground-plan (fig. 2).

The openings leading off from the tank on each side into the

extension of the cavern inwards and outwards were then walled up to complete the cementing of its sides, so as to enable it to retain water.

In removing the loose soil and clay from the part of the cavern thus broken into (for it was full to the roof with yellow and grey sandy clay, without any stalactites, or stalagmitic floor, such as existed in the Hippopotamus-cavern of Maghlak), a quantity of fragments of bones and teeth of at least two species of Elephas (one of ordinary size, but the more abundant being of a remarkable pigmy species), and other bones of extinct animals were found mingled with subangular and not waterworn fragments of the parent calcareous sandstone rock in which this fissure-like cavern ran, the bones and fragments being generally found lying upon the natural floor of the cavern. These had been thrown out confusedly together into an accumulated heap of soil and fragments near the mouth of the tank, and remained undisturbed at my visit.

As on examining this heap of cave soil I procured a considerable number of fragments of the same Pigmy Elephant as I had seen in the Library Museum, and which had been presented a short time previously by Signor Buttegieg, the proprietor of the garden, I was anxious to complete the exploration of the parts of the cavern that had been walled up; and by the kind permission of the proprietor, and the assistance of his son, Padre Pietro, I had the cavern reopened on each side of the tank, and finally traced it inwards to a distance of about 75 feet. It was then traced for about 15 feet on the other side of the tank, to its original mouth opening out into the side of the valley, but which now lies completely under the soil and roots of the fruit-trees growing upon the lower terrace of the garden at about five or six feet only above the level of the rocky torrent-bed that meanders through the valley. The cavern, I found, ran nearly horizontally from the ravine, having one short branch, terminating in a small chamber as seen in the plan, and varied in height from 4 to 5 feet, with a breadth varying from 1 to 2 feet, until it became contracted to a few inches only.

The results of this exploration, and a subsequent resifting of the heap of soil when dry, some months after, by the express desire of the late Dr. Falconer, yielded not only many bones of the Pigmy Elephant, but also a complete set of the tusks and teeth of this singular extinct species, in every stage of growth, mingled with which were fragments of ivory, that had evidently formed part of the tusk of a much larger but ordinary-sized elephant; yet none of the teeth of the latter were found.

All these fragments bore evidence, more or less marked, of fierce gnawing by some carnivorous animal, apparently not larger than a jackal. But it became apparent to me during the examination of these fragments that they differed entirely from the large mammalian remains from Crendi cavern, and that it in fact contained no remains of Hippopotamus.

The necessity of keeping this point in view, and the importance of identifying its relics, as being distinct from those of the Crendi

[The shaded parts of the cavern are those which were excavated by the author.]