COLLECTIONS FROM THE FAYUM IT 
Although fossils occur in considerable abundance in the Middle 
Eocene strata, the energies of the American Museum party were pretty 
well confined to the Upper Eocene or fluvio-marine beds, which contain 
a much larger fauna. Here fossils were found usually in loosely com- 
pacted white or yellow sand, either as isolated specimens or in deposits 
where bones of thousands of animals had been washed together, hope-. 
lessly mixed up and often, especially in the case of skulls, badly broken. 
Two such deposits situated about a quarter of a mile apart had been 
discovered and extensively worked, but by no means exhausted, by the- 
MUSEUM CAMP AT QASR-EL-SAGHA. 
Middle Eocene bluff in the background. 
English parties. ‘Through the courtesy of the Survey Department in 
Cairo, the American Museum party was allowed to continue the work 
of excavation in the quarries which had been opened by the English, 
and the greater part of the material obtained was from them, although 
the finer skulls were, in all instances, found elsewhere. The bones are. 
only partly petrified, being in striking contrast to the hard, flinty, 
thoroughly petrified wood which is always found in association with 
them, but the most unfortunate feature of these Upper Eocene fossils. 
is the lack of association of the parts of the skeleton. To find two. 
