state of Malta – whether it arose by some convulsive throe from the ocean which surrounds it, or that the Mediterranean Sea, from remote causes, has lost its former elevation, being now found considerably below the level of the Red Sea, it may be mentioned, without dread of refutation, that these caverns, like numerous others in the island, show the water line at the period of their formation, as those under the black rock and the southern face especially. A recent writer on the statistics, &c., of the island of Malta and its dependencies, who visited Valetta, and knew little of Malta, informs his readers, that Malta is furrowed with what he designates valleys from S.W. to N.E. – following out the assertions of another and former resident in Malta – that the course of the various ravines was from west to east, as if to render subservient to geological theories, the mode or order in which Malta must have been formed; yet the slightest observation (which neither had exercised) proves these ravines to embrace each of the cardinal, and, perhaps, not less the subsidiary, points of the compass. In like manner, this writer on the statistics states very boldly that the island of Gozo has villages but no town; Rubatto has its cathedral, numerous churches, religious establishments, with its imposing citadel for defence, occupying considerable extent of ground, and with a population exceeding 7,000 souls, and to which the late governor, Sir F. Bouverie, added an aqueduct, for a more certain supply of water. Mr. Martin never visited Gozo, and this, like other portions of his work, is merely gathered from report.
