ON THE CLIMATE OP EGYPT IN ANCIENT TIMES. 89 



formed the geological stratum known in our day as the 

 Nubian Sandstone. 



After a period of geological time the Egyptian part of the 

 orust of the earth was still more upheaved, exposing a 

 larger surface above water, and laying bare a great deal of 

 the Nubian Sandstone that had been deposited at the bottom 

 •of the sea. 



The chmate Avas still damp and very hot all through 

 the rest of the succeeding formations, and extending to nearly 

 the end of the Second Geological Period. Egypt lost in area 

 instead of gaining ; for the more than tropical rains continued 

 to disintegrate the rocks, and washed the greater part of the 

 Nubian Sandstone into a sea, which was becoming more and 

 more animated by organisms that were rising in the scale of 

 existence, and wliich was depositing layer upon layer at its 

 bottom an illustrated history of its inhabitants and its work. 



At this time the eastern part of the island, that represented 

 Egypt, became submerged, and on it, at the bottom of a still 

 warm sea, a cretaceous deposit took place enclosing in its 

 substance the remains of animals of a much higher type of 

 organisation than we have yet met with. Some of these 

 animals were amphibious, so that they could come out of the 

 water and bask in the sun on the sandy shore of the sea. 

 'f hey Avere all representatives of the fauna of a warm cli- 

 mate. 



The Tertiary Period was ushered in by a general though 

 unequal submergence of all that is known as the Egypt of 

 the present day, except the region about Assouan, which con- 

 tinued to appear as a rocky island in the Tertiary Sea, just 

 as it had done in the early Primary and late Secondary Seas. 



During the deposit of the lowest stratum called Eocene 

 (Nummulitic) of the Tertiary Geological formation, the geo- 

 graphical position of Egypt was still occupied by a compara- 

 tively warm sea, as shown by the fossils that are now found 

 in Avhat must have been its bed.^ In due time the crust of 

 the earth Avas pushed up out of the water by volcanic action 

 and became dry Inud.- After a space of geological time, 

 alluvium was formed on the noAv exposed Eocene stratum — 

 A^ast forests grew, that must have been well Avatered in the 

 <irdinary Ava}', by the rains of heaven." Naturally there 

 Avould be a Avatershed somcAvhere, and therefore a riA^er. 

 This condition of things must have lasted many thousands of 

 years, Avlien another A^olcanic disturbance, or natural shrink- 

 •iige took place, and a portion of this part of the globe became 



