304 GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF EGYPT AND THE NILE VALLEY. 
The second is from the Rev. A. Irvine, B.A., D. Sc., F.G.S., Senior 
Science Master at Wellington College, who writes :— 
I regret very much that my professional duties prevent me from 
being present at the reading of the important paper by my friend, 
Professor Hutz, on Monday evening. One can only wish that more 
were done by competent experts, whose minds are free from all 
hostility to Revelation, to make us better furnished with exact 
knowledge of the countries which form the background of Sacred 
history. In these days of criticism, some friendly, some hostile, this 
becomes every year a matter of increasing importance, as tending to 
add often concurrent and incidental testimony to the substantial 
truth of the historical books of the Bible. 
I may perhaps be allowed to add an extract from a letter which I 
received last week from an old pupil, Lieutenant H. G. Lyons, who 
is stationed now at Cairo, and has already done such good work 
at home as to give promise of becoming, with the facilities which 
his position as an officer ia the Royal Engineers afford, a very 
competent geologist. He has lately been up the Nile with Colonel 
Ross, of the Irrigation Department. He writes :— 
“The geology of the Nile Valley would be extremely interesting 
to any one who had a year or two to study it carefully and quietly. 
There is plenty to be done. I must say I learned much in my ten 
days’ trip as to river-silting, &c.,as I went up at high Nile and yot 
a number of specimens of last year’s Nile mud. Another thing I 
have learnt from riding in the desert is the enormous amount of 
sub-aérial erosion at work by heat and cold, and by the heavy few 
hours’ rain which falls in the winter; great gorges, with cliffs 300 
to 500 feet high, and deeply undercut by water at their bases. 
There is a deposit here of a dense quartzite-like sandstore (Gebel 
Ahmar) which Dawson puts down to geyser action. This Zittel 
rejects, and certainly | can see no support for it. It looks to me 
much more like the Sarsen-stone case again, and I am going to pre- 
pare some sections for the microscope. Then these fossil-trees, the 
silicification of which no one has hitherto explained: I think they are 
possibly due to the same cause, for in all cases the decay seems to 
have commenced externally at the time of the replacement of their 
tissues by silica.” 
The discussion which followed, was of a general character; many 
expressed warm appreciation of the value of Professor Hutt’s 
paper, and it was felt that it was so full of close research and 
so carefully ayranged, that no room was afforded for criticism. 
Professor Hurt having thanked those present for the kind way in 
which they had received the paper, the meeting was then adjourned. 
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