GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF EGYPT AND THE NILE VALLEY. 327 
tion with the Atlantic Ocean was cut off.* The large number 
of remains of Elephants, Hippopotami, and other forms in the 
caves of Sicily and Malta, as shown by the late Drs. Falconer 
and Leith Adams, bear testimony to the extent of the land 
connection here indicated ; and it is known that there is a 
large extent of very shallow water in this part of the sea, 
separating deep gulfs on either hand. 
Bearing on the subject of the formation of the channel of 
the Nile and the denudation of the plain of Lower Egypt, it 
may be observed that the lowering of the Mediterranean 
waters would cause increased velocity in the flow of those of 
the Nile, and consequently deeper and more rapid scouring 
out of the original channel. As already stated, the depth of 
the original floor of the basin of Lower Egypt is probably 
not less in some places than 200 feet from the present 
surface; the Rosetta boring described by Colonel Maitland, 
R.E., having gone down 153 feet without reaching the solid 
rock, and leaving off in coarse sand and pebbles. 
Other excavations and borings made by the aid of funds 
granted by the Royal Society, reported upon by Horner and 
Judd, do not attain greater depths than about 75 feet, and 
are in alternating strata of desert sand and Nile mud.f 
Part 1V.—THE AGE oF MAN. 
The period at which we have arrived, representing the 
“First Continental Period” of Lyell, continued on from 
the Pliocene into the Post-Pliocene or Glacial. It was one of 
general elevation of land, of shallowing of seas, of increasing 
cold and prevalence of glacial conditions over Northern and 
Central Europe and Asia. It was also the age of the Mam- 
moth, of the woolly Rhinoceros, and, most important of all, of 
Paleeocosmic Man.t Perhaps man followed in the steps of 
* The subject has been ably discussed by Mr. T. F. Jamieson, G'eologica 
Magazine, May 1885, p. 199, and _ is treated in my Sketch of Geologica. 
History (1887), p. 129 et seg. The Mediterranean may have been con- 
‘adorably different in form at this epoch from what it is at present. 
+ Horner, Phil. Trans., 1855; Judd, Proce. Roy. Soc., vol. xxxix, Nov. 
1885. Analyses of these deposits are given by both these authors, and by 
Dr. J. 8. Hyland of those at Korti, in the Nile Valley, Scien. Proc. Roy. 
Dublin Soc., Feb. 1890. 
{ I have taken this term from Dawson in preference to Palzeolitic, which 
is more generally in use. The reader will do well to consult Sir J. W. 
Dawson’s excellent work, Modern Science in Bible Lands, for a fuller 
account of this part of my subject than I can give here. 
