Notices of Memoirs — The Oilfields of Egypt. 315 



-worn and corroded, with prisms of enstatite and augite, in a ground- 

 mass of labradorite laths, augite, and iron-ore granules. The base, 

 which may represent a devitrified glass, now consists of an ill- 

 defined, turbid, untwinned, felspathic substance and quartz, which 

 carries numerous microlites of iron-ores. The rock is fully described 

 in the above-cited paper. A N.N.W. dyke with similar characters 

 occurs in the Church Burn at Corrie. 



The dykes of the cumbraite facies, therefore, are distributed in 

 a narrow band running S.S.E. from the Cowal peninsula, through 

 the Great Cumbrae, down into central Ayrshire ; and thence with 

 a more south-easterly trend through the Muirkirk district towards 

 the Scottish border. South of the border they give place to dykes 

 which are regarded as basic varieties of inninmorite (Cleveland 

 dyke) and the Brunton type of tholeiite (Anderson & Badley, 1916, 

 p. 209). The cumbraites appear to belong to the regional or solitary 

 dykes of Sir A. Geikie ; and this may be the reason for their non- 

 appearance in Arran, where the dykes are local and connected with 

 the Arran centre of Tertiary eruption. 



{To be concluded in the August Number.) 



]STOTICES OF DVEE3VCOII?,S. 



I. — The Oilfields of Egypt. 1 



BETWEEN the Sinai Mountains and the lied Sea Hills lies 

 a depressed area bounded by faults and traversed by three hill- 

 xanges, the Esh Mellaha, Zeit, and Araba Hills, which are separated 

 from each other and from the main ranges by three plains and the 

 Gulf of Suez. All these features trend approximately north-west 

 and south-east. The breadth of the sunken tract is on the average 

 100 kilometres, of which the Gulf occupies about one-fourth. 



Although petroleum has only been found in quantity in the 

 peninsula of Jemsa, near the entrance to the Gulf, and at Barquada 2 

 about 50 kilometres to the south-east of Jemsa, near the shore of 

 the Bed Sea, the whole of the area, together with a narrow strip on 

 the shore of the Bed Sea, extending as far as Bas Benas, is 

 characterized by great geological similarity, and may be referred to 

 as the oilfield region ; but the district more especially dealt with in 

 this report lies between 27° 10' and 28° 10' North lat., and 33° and 

 33° 50' East long. A coloured geological map of this area and a plate of 

 ten horizontal sections accompany the Beport. During the progress 

 of the work, extending over several years, the author examined some 

 of the Boumanian oilfields under the guidance of Brofessor Mrazec, 

 who subsequently visited Egypt and to whom we are mainly indebted 

 for the horizontal sections. 



Those portions of the Beport which deal with the tectonic features 

 of the oilfield region have recently been summarized by the author 



1 Report on the Oilfields Region of Egypt, by W. P. Hume, D.Sc, A.R.S.M., 

 F.R.S.E., Director Geological Survey of Egypt, pp. viii and 103, with 

 a geological map (1 : 150,000) from surveys by John Ball, Ph.D., D.Sc, F.G.S., 

 23 plates, and 9 text-figures. Cairo : Government Press, 1916. Price 30 P.T. 



2 Rarquada is opposite Gefatin Island 



