ae, 
ee a 
Read at the Meeting of the Cotteswold Club, March 22, 1892, by 
J. H. Taunton, M. Inst. C.E. F.G.S. 
Before proceeding to the Syrian Coast and Palestine, I 
must take you for a little while to Egypt, in the neighbourhood 
of Cairo, with reference to the nummulitic and underlying 
cretaceous limestones at the Mokattan Quarries there, or at the 
old Pyramids and their plateau at Gizeh, in either of which 
you will see good sections of the Nummulitic Limestone, and 
have evidence of the variations of level that have taken place 
at the opening of the Tertiary period which witnessed the 
development of the present distribution of land and sea, and 
the upheaval of most of the mountain chains of the globe, and 
subsequently in a less degree in the pleistocene age of similar 
movements that will assist us when we get to the study of 
Syrian Geology, for as the sketch map* shows, the Geology of 
Egypt (as its history) is linked with that of the Holy Land. 
With this distinction, however, as noted by Sir John Dawson, 
that while the hills of Palestine are so largely comprised 
of cretaceous limestone, and the later eocene limestones 
(nummulitic) are represented there only by small patches. In 
Egypt, on the contrary, a grand development of the Eocene 
and less of the cretaceous limestones is found. He says :— 
<T am of opinion that there was an original difference, thicker 
deposits having taken place in the cretaceous period in Syria 
than in Egypt, and precisely the reverse in the Eocene age. 
Much of the physical difference between the two countries 
depends on this circumstance.” 
* The sketch map referred to was an enlargement of Dr Hull’s Geological 
Map of Palestine, &c., published by the Palestine Exploration Society, from 
which the accompanying map is a reduced copy. 
