COLLECTIONS FROM THE FAYUM 9 
part of the depression was covered with water which came through a 
natural canal from the Nile; at present, however, the area of the lake 
has been very much reduced by artificiaily limiting the supply of water, 
and most of the depression is a fertile irmgated tract, with a small lake 
(the Birket-el-Qurin) occupying the lowest part. The surface of this 
lake is about 125 feet below sea level. 
North of the lake the land is waterless and barren and rises rather 
abruptly by a series of terraces or benches to the rim of the depression, 
ae 
Gizo Pyramids 
ee 
Senkargs Pyramids + 
z 7) = 
— Dashir Pyro mnds 3) = 
ZEUGLODOX-< __ 
ALLEY -A, OP 
VALLEY “/Gar el Gehannem 
Ae 
SKETCH MAP OF THE FAYUM DISTRICT, LOWER EGYPT. 
1200 feet above the water. These benches are made up of Middle and 
Upper Eocene deposits and it is here that most of the vertebrate fossils 
have been found. ‘The deposits begin with marine beds at the base; 
above which are strata classed as fluvio-marine, above which again are 
fluviatile or river-delta deposits, forming the top of the series. This 
succession indicates that, long before the existence of the present 
depression, the southern shore of the Mediterranean Sea was in this 
vicinity; that the sea gradually reached northward, and that then a 
