THE ANNALS AND MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. [THIRD SERIES.] " perlitora spargite museum, Naiades, et circum vitreos considite fontes : Pollice virgineo teneros hie carpite flores : Floribus et pictum, divas, replete canistrum. At vos, o Nymphs Craterides, ite sub undas ; Ite, recurvato variata corallia trunco Vellite muscosis e rupibus, et mihi conchas Ferte, Deajpelagi, et pingui conchylia succo," N. Parthenii Giannettasii Eel. 1. No. 79. JULY 1864. I. — Outline of the Geologxj of the Maltese Islands, by Dr. Leith Adams, of the 22nd Regiment; and Descriptions of the Bra-chiopoda, by Thomas Davidson, Esq., F.R.S., F.G.S. &c. [Plate I.] 1 HE Maltese Islands run from north-west to south-east; their long axis, including the intermediate channels, does not exceed twenty-nine miles. Malta, the most southern of the chain, is seventeen miles long by nine miles broad. Comino is two miles long by one in breadth ; and Gozo, the most northern, is nine miles in length, with a breadth of about five miles. All the islands belong to one series, and, according to the latest re-searches, are to be considered portions of an early Miocene equi-valent to the Hempstead beds in England *, and of the middle Tertiaries of the south of France, north of Italy, Doberg bei ,Bunde in Westphalia, and the Urchin-beds of Bonifacio and elsewhere in Corsica f. The formations are sedimentary and marine, with a horizontal stratification, and are all conformable. The greatest thickness of the deposits equals nearly 800 feet above the sea-level. The * Prof. E. Forbes, Proe. Geol. Soe. vol. iv. p. 232. t Wright, on Fossil Echinodermata of Malta and Gozo, 'Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist.' vol. xv., 1855. Ann. $ Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 3. Vol. xiv. 1
BioStor
