10 E. HERON-ALLEN AND A. EARLAND ON THE FORAMINIFERA 



Pyramids.* They are to this day known locally as " Pharaoh's 

 beans." t 



Philip de la Harpe begins his Monograph on the genus (27) 

 with the words, " Egypt is the classic land of the Nummulites," 

 and Dr. Carpenter in his Introduction (28) passes in review the 

 legends which have attached themselves to this organism, from 

 Herodotus (?), Pliny (?) and Strabo to the learned Clusius, who 

 refers to " the popular belief of the Transylvanians that they 

 were pieces of money turned into stone by King Ladislaus, in 

 order to prevent his soldiers from stopping to collect them just 

 when they were putting the Tartars to flight ! " J 



Tt may be remarked that Prof. Haug has suggested (31) 

 abolishing the Lyellian nomenclature of geological periods for all 

 epochs later than the Cretaceous, and the redistribution of the 

 strata into Nummulitic, Neogene, and Quaternary. He suggests 

 that the Nummulitic, whose classification is founded solely upon 

 this foraminifer alone, shall be divided into the Eo-Nummulitic, 

 which will comprise the Montian, the Thanetian, and the Lon- 

 donian (names which speak for themselves), the Meso-Nummu- 

 litic, which will comprise the Lutetian and Ludian, and the 

 Neo-Nummulitic, which includes all strata from the Lower 

 Oligocene up to the dawn of the Glacial Period which com- 

 mences his Quaternary. 



As a rule these two dominant types, Alveolina and Nummulites, 



* Strabo, Geographica, lib. xvii. cap. i. 34: cpaal d'airoXidudrji'a.i \el\pava 

 tt?s rdv epya^ofxtvocv rpocprjs. ovk direoiKe. See the note on this passage in 

 Canon Rawlinson's translation (1860). 



f In spite of the fact that Herodotus (who has been credited with 

 Strabo's observation on the Nummulites) expressly states (Euterpe, IT. 37) 

 that the Egyptians never grew or ate beans in any form. 



X Clusius (i.e. Charles de l'Ecluse, 1526-1609), in Caroli Clusii et aliorum 

 vpistolae, Paris (Epistola xxxvii.), thus records the matter : " Intellexi item 

 genus quoddam lapillorum planorum et quasi circino in orbem ductorum 

 inveniri in montibus qui Pannoniam a Daciasive Transilvania disterminant, 

 quorum alii auri, alii argenti colorem referunt et characteribus insigniti 

 videntur sed incognitis. Ferunt Ladislaum regem quum Tartaros praeda et 

 spoliis onustos persequeretur atque metueret, ne militum suorum avaritia 

 et ignavia, qui thesauris per viam stratis ab hostibus inhaerebant, victoria 

 illi e manibus eriperetur, a Deo petiisse ut nummi illi et pecunia ab hosti- 

 bus in via relicta in lapides mutarentur, quo militem sic delusum alacriorem 

 haberet in persequendo hoste." A passage contemporary with, if it should 

 not precede, Mr. C. D. Sherborn's earliest reference to Conrad Gesner 

 (1566). 



