XX.] THE MOKATTAM MOUNTAINS. 725 



especially in its northern part, where a strong head wind 

 blew. This caused so great a lowering of the temperature that 

 a film of ice was formed on the fresh-water pools in Cairo, 

 and that we, Polar travellers as we were, had again to put on 

 winter clothes in Egypt itself. 



The Vega anchored on the 27th January at the now 

 inconsiderable port, Suez, situated at the southern entrance to 

 the Suez Canal, Most of the scientific men and officers of 

 the Vega expedition made an excursion thence to Cairo and the 

 Pyramids, and were everywhere received in a very kind way. 

 Among other things the Egyptian Geographical Society sent 

 a deputation to welcome us under the leadership of the 

 President of the Society, the American, Stone Pacha. He 

 had in his youth visited Sweden, and appeared to have a 

 very pleasant recollection of it. The Geographical Society 

 gave a stately banquet in honour of the Vega expedition. 

 An excursion was made to the Great Pyramids, and, as far as 

 the short time permitted, to other remarkable places in and 

 around the heap of ruins of all kinds and from all periods, 

 which forms the capital of the Egypt of to-day. During our 

 visit to the Pyramids the S\vedish-Norwegian consul-general, 

 BoDTKER, gave us a dinner in the European hotel there, and 

 the same evening a ball was given us by the Italian consul- 

 general, De Martino. a day was besides devoted by some of 

 us, in company with M. Guiseppe Haimann, to a short excursion 

 to the Mokattam Mountains, famous for the silicified tree- 

 stems found there. I hoped along with the petrified wood to 

 find some strata of clay-slate or schist with leaf-impressions. 

 I was however unsuccessful in this, but I loaded heavily a 

 carriage drawn by a pair of horses with large and small tree- 

 stems converted into hard flint. These lie spread about in the 

 desert in incredible masses, partly broken up into small pieces 

 partly as long fallen stems, without root or branches, but in 

 a wonderfully good state of preservation. Probably they had 

 originally lain imbedded in a layer of sand above the present 

 surface of the desert. This layer has afterwards been carried 

 away by storms, leaving the heavy masses of stone as a peculiar 

 stratum upon the desert sand, which is not covered by any 

 grassy sward. No root-stumps were found, and it thus ap- 

 peared as if the stems had been carried by currents of water 

 to the place where they were imbedded in the sandy layers 

 and silicified. In their exterior all these petrifactions resemble 

 each other, and by the microscopical examination which has 

 hitherto been made naturalists have only succeeded in dis- 

 tinguishing two species belonging to the family Nicolia, and a 

 palm, a pine, and a leguminous plant, all now extinct. It is 

 possible that among the abundant materials I brought home 



