KEWTOX : LOWEK TKRTIAKY MOLLUSCA OF TUE FAYU3I. 61 



He pointed out that the Upper Mokattam rocks of that region were 

 succeeded in its northern part by a series of beds over 200 metres 

 in thickness, which resembled a fluvio-marine area similar to the 

 Oligocene of Hampshire in England. He also referred to the Upper 

 Eocene age of the deposits as determined by Dr. Blanckenhorn from 

 a study of the shells collected by himself. This was rapidly followed 

 by Mr. Beadnell's^ English abstract of the French memoir in which 

 the beds in question were provisionally assigned to the Oligocene. At 

 the end of the same year (1901) Mr. lieadnell- definitely recognized 

 these rocks as the ' Fluvio-marine Series (Jebel el Qatrani Beds) ', their 

 age being given as Upper Eocene for the deposits below the basalts, 

 and for those above the basalts, where onlj- silicifled woods occurred, 

 a Lower Oligocene horizon was suggested. 



In a later work by Dr. Blanckenhorn ^ on the stratigraphy of 

 Egvpt, reference is again made to the estnarine shells of the Jebel 

 el Qatrani Series, found below the basalts, which he still regarded 

 as indicative of an Upper Eocene age. Allusion was also made to 

 the occurrence of Lower Oligocene mollusca, outside the Fayum 

 area, between Birket el Qurun and Wadi Natrun, quoting such forms 

 as Cerithinm conjuncUwi, Deshayes, and Melania Nysti, Nyst, 

 belonging to the " Sables de Fontainebleau " of France, and therefore 

 of Stampian age. When we come to Mr. Beadnell's chief memoir* 

 these particular beds beneath the basalts are similarly regarded as 

 Upper Eocene, although in addition determined as Bartonian, the 

 same geological views being also adopted by Dr. C. W. Andrews^ 

 in his monograph on the fossil vertebrates from the Fayum. 

 Succeeding this Dr. Oppenheim's important monograph ^ on the 

 older Tertiary mollusca of Egypt was published, in which the fluvio- 

 marine Gastropods previously referred to by Dr. Blanckenhorn as 

 from the Jebel el Qatrani Series were noticed as belonging to the 

 Upper Eocene or Lower Oligocene. 



Soon after the publication of this last work Professor Ch. Deperet ' 

 questioned the Bartonian horizon of the vertebrates occurring near 

 the base of the Jebel el Qatrani Series. He claimed that the relation- 

 ship existing between Ancodon Gorringei of Andrews and Beadnell, 

 and his Brachyodus Cluai from the Sannoisian-Stampian division of 



^ "On some recent Geological Discoveries in the Nile Valley and Libyan 



Desert" : Geol. Mag., 1901, p. 27. 

 " "The Fayum Depression: a preliminary notice of the geology of a district 



in Egypt containing a new Paleogene vertebrate Fauna": Geol. Mag., 



1901, pp. 544-5. 

 ^ " Neue geologisch-stratigraphische Beobacbtungen in Aegypten" : Sitz. Akad. 



Wiss. Miincben, vol. xxxii, p. 400, 1903. 

 ■* The Topography and Geology of the Fayum Province of Egypt, Survey 



Dept., Egypt,' 1905, p. 53. 

 ° A Descriptive Catalogue of the Tertiary Vertehrata of the Fayum, Egypt, 



1906, pp. viii, ix of Introduction. 

 ® " Zur Kenntniss alttertiarer Faunen in Aegypten " : Palaeontographica, 



vol. XXX, pt. iii, fasc. 2, pp. 278, 282, 284, 1906. 

 " Sur I'age des couches a Palaomastodon du Fayoum " : Bull. Soc. geol. 



France, ser. iv, vol. vii, pp. 193, 194, 1907. 



