THE ÆGADIAN ISLANDS.

Off the western extremity of Sicily lie shallows, sand-banks, and calcareous islands of the same composition as the adjoining mainland. These are the Ægades, or Goat Islands, named after the animals which climb their steep escarpments. Favignana, near which the Romans won the naval victory which terminated the first Punic war, is the largest of these islands. Its steep cliffs abound in caverns, in which heaps of shells, gnawed bones, and stone implements have been found, dating back to the contemporaries of the mammoth and the antediluvian bear. Conflicts between contrary winds are frequent in this labyrinth of rocks and shoals, and the power of the waves is much dreaded. The tides are most irregular, and give rise to dangerous eddies. The sudden ebb, locally known as marubia, or “tipsy sea” (mare ubbriaco?), has been the cause of many shipwrecks.

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Fig. 123.—THE MEDITERRANEAN TO THE SOUTH OF SICILY.

Scale 1 : 4,000,000.