March i6, 191 i] 



NATURE 



n 



and not bewilderingly complicated like those of tropical 

 America. Africa, too, is especially rich in naturalists 

 who are waiting to be inspired and encouraged, as 

 they will assuredly be by the present work. The 

 author is to be congratulated upon the fine volume and 

 the beautiful plates which are the outcome of his labour 

 of love. It cannot be long before he may be con- 

 gratulated upon their fruitful results. E. B. P. 



THE GEOLOGY OF EGYPT. 

 Geological Map of Egypt. Scale i : 1,000,000 (six 

 sheets) and reduction of the same to the scale 

 I : 2,000,000. (Cairo : Survey Department, 1910.) 



SOON after the occupation of Egypt by a British 

 military force in 1882, the late Prof. Huxley, 

 then president of the Royal Society, directed attention 

 to the valuable opportunity that was afforded for the 

 extension of our geological knowledge in that inter- 

 esting country. He instanced the valuable series of 

 scientific memoirs that had been prepared by French 

 savants during the occupation of the country at the 

 beginning of the nineteenth century, as an example 

 worthy to be followed. Following his advice, the 

 Royal Society appointed a " Delta Committee " to 

 arrange for explorations, which it seemed desirable 

 to undertake, and made various grants from its funds 

 to defray expenses. The War Department of the 

 Government, on being applied to by the Royal Society, 

 lagreed to lend the service of some of the engineer- 

 j officers, then in the country, to supervise the work. 

 [ As the result of these arrangements, borings were 

 put down at a number of points in the Nile Delta, 

 and reports on the materials sent home were sub- 

 mitted to the society by the Delta Committee in 1885 

 and 1897, and were published in the Royal Society 

 Proceedings. 



But in 1893-4 ^^ engineer-ofificer. Captain H. G. 

 »Lyons, already known in this country by his geo- 

 logical work in the Bagshot area, was employed on 

 loatrol work in the oases of Kharga and Dakhla and 

 iiin the desert routes to the south of them, and he took 

 ilif opportunity thus afforded to him for making a 

 l)er of geological observations in the district, 

 li proved to be of great value and interest. Two 

 s later the Egyptian Government decided to estab- 

 .1 geological survey of the country, and to place 

 nder the direction of Captain Lyons. A staff of 

 uiA.-yors was formed, consisting of four young 

 ;< iilogists from the Royal College of Science — Messrs. 

 Barron, Beadnell, Hume, and Ball — and for a time 

 )i. Blankenhorn acted as palaeontologist to the 

 urvey. The first named of these surveyors, after 

 lonig much excellent work, fell a victim to the 

 Hinate of the Sudan in igo6. A number of very valu- 

 memoirs by Captain Lyons and his staff have 

 published, some of which have been already 

 wed in the pages of Nature. 

 ^-^ Egypt and the Sudan have no good topographical 

 i|,|iaps to be placed at the disposal of the geological 

 '='ff, topographers have had to be attached to each 

 '<• geological surveying parties; in this branch of 

 ' work Mr. F. W. Green, of Cambridge, a good 

 < lueologist, has often served as a volunteer. In 

 NO. 2159, VOL. 86] 



1898 Captain Lyons took over the charge of the whole 

 of the survey departments of Egypt, while continuing 

 his direction of the geological work. 



It is not possible here to enumerate all the advances 

 made in our knowledge through the labours of the 

 little staff of geological surveyors in Egypt, but 

 especial mention may be made of the important 

 palaeontological discoveries of Mr. Beadnell, aided by 

 Dr. Andrews, in the Fayum, which included the find- 

 ing of the wonderful Arsinotherium, and the ances- 

 tral forms of elephants and whales. Scarcely less 

 interesting and important are the results obtained by 

 Dr. Hume in his surveys of the Sinaitic peninsula, 

 and of the eastern and south-eastern deserts of Egypt ; 

 and by Dr. Bell in his work around several of the 

 oases and cataracts. 



The results of all these researches are incorporated 

 in the new geological maps of Egypt now issued. In 

 spite of the existence of considerable blanks, these 

 maps are a very great advance on any that have 

 hitherto appeared. The oldest fossiliferous formation 

 recognised is the Carboniferous, but considerable areas 

 have to be mapped as " Nubian sandstones," portions 

 of which may be of different geological age ; there 

 are also beds of gypsum, the position of which in the 

 geological series is in some cases still doubtful. The 

 Cretaceous strata are divided into Cenomanian, 

 Senonian, and Danian, while the extensivel)' de- 

 veloped Eocene strata have been distributed in three 

 local divisions. Strata referred to the Miocene and 

 Pliocene also occur, while Pleistocene and more recent 

 deposits obscure wide areas. The larger-scale map 

 forms six sheets, and the smaller a single sheet; all 

 these are admirably printed in colour, and corre- 

 sponding maps with hill-shading , have also been 

 issued by the Survey Department. 



The survey staff has lost its original director, 

 Captain Lyons, and also Mr. Beadnell, but it has been 

 reinforced by the appointment of Mr. H. T. Ferrar, 

 the geologist of Captain Scott's first Antarctic ex- 

 pedition ; there have also been several other geologists 

 who have served temporarily on the staff. The work 

 is carried on at the present time under the director- 

 ship of Dr. W. Eraser Hume, who has had such a 

 wide experience in desert-work, and is responsible for 

 the maps which form the subject of the present 

 notice. We are glad to learn from the last 

 issued report of the survey that Dr. Hume proposes 

 to write a general sketch of the "Geology of Egypt," 

 this work, from such capable hands, will be looked 

 forward to by geologists with much interest. 



J. W. J. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF BOTANY. 

 Landmarks of Botanical History. A Study in Certain 

 Epochs in the Development of the Science of 

 Botany. Part i., Prior to 1562 a.d. By E. L. 

 Greene. Pp. 329. (City of Washington : Smith- 

 sonian Institution, 1909; Smithsonian Miscellaneous 

 Collection, part of vol. xliv.) 



DR. GREENE has contributed to the history of 

 the progress of botany a work that bears evi- 

 dence of unwearied research into the labours of 



