ves it to the Italian coast. Geologists of our day not only
believe that the Maltese group was once a part of Sicily, but that in
the far past it was also joined to Africa. In evidence of this
deduction, carefully prepared maps of soundings taken between the
islands and the continent on either side of the group are produced,
while in the soil of both Sicily and Malta the skeletons of hyenas and
other animals indigenous to Africa are frequently to be found, besides
other fossil remains indicating a like conclusion. If this supposition
be correct, how great must have been the changes which have taken place
in the physical geography of southern Europe and Malta! What a general
upheaval and subsidence must have agitated this famous sea in the remote
past! That important topographical changes have taken place in these
waters and in their relative connection with the land during historic
times is well known. A little more than two thousand years ago, the
Mediterranean and the Red Sea were united. De Lesseps' canal was no new
proposition. Nature had already half done the work by means of the
Bitter Lakes, and the modern engineer had only to restore a connection
which time had destroyed.

Among many other interesting fossil bones, teeth, and complete skeletons
unearthed at Gozo by naturalists, those of a pygmy species of elephants
were found, which must have stood but about four feet in height; these
were manifestly of African origin. The Ceylon elephant is distinctly
different, in size and in several other features. The latter is the
species universally met with in India, the beautiful island named having
yielded a regular supply to this country from time immemorial.

Dr. Andrew Leith Adams, a distinguished English surgeon and naturalist,
who resided for a period of several years in Malta, found fossil bones
and teeth of hippopotami in various parts of the group. He says in a
published account that he "unearthed hundreds of elephant's teeth,
together with those of other tropical animals." He also discovered, in
caves on the south side of the larger island, vestiges of aquatic birds
of a species now extinct, and which in life must have been larger than
the swan of our day. The presence of such remains indicates a great
change of climatic conditions between the far past and the present time.
It is difficult to imagine that Malta was ever the native land of
elephants and sea-horses, but Dr. Adams shows, at least to his own
satis