Reviews- — BeadneWs Geology of the Fayum, Egypt. 517 



(3) The desert region to the north of the lake is composed of 

 beds of Middle and Upper Eocene age, forming a series of escarp- 

 ments. It was here, within the past four years, that the most 

 surprising results have been obtaim-d by the paleeontologist, almost 

 surpassing in interest the truly remai'kable discoveries which had 

 rewarded the earlier labours of Marsh, Osborne, Scott, and others in 

 North America. When Sell wein fur th. crossed the region in 1879 

 he found fossil bones, which were determined by Dames to be the 

 remains of Cetacea of the genus Zetiglodon. These appear to have 

 been the earliest vertebrates obtained from the Fayilm. In April, 

 1901, some of the localities, previously noticed by 'Mr. Beadnell in 

 1898 to be bone-bearing, were revisited by him, in company with 

 Dr. C. W. Andrews, of the British Museum, then spending the 

 winter in Egypt,^ when additional evidence of fossil vertebrates 

 was met with. A new locality was also discovered further north 

 (where the outcrop of the bone-beds was crossed), and a con- 

 siderable number of mammalian and reptilian bones was observed 

 exposed at the surface, including remains of Sirenians, Zeuglodon, 

 etc., the most important laud mammalia being Palceomastodon 

 Beadnelli, Mcerttlierium Lijovsi, Barytherium grave,' etc. Later on 

 the remarkable new ungulate Arsinoitlierium Zitteli, Beadn., was 

 discovered by Mr. Beadnell (see Geol. Mag., 1903, pp. 529-532, 

 Pis. XXIII and XXIV) with many others. Important and wonderful 

 as these discoveries are, their value is greatly enhanced by the 

 extraordinary completeness of the stratigraphical record exhibited 

 in the very clearly exposed and regular series of deposits laid 

 bare on the flanking cliffs and escarpments on the northern side 

 of the Fayum, of which the author gives a large number of 

 sections with details of each separate bed. Thus we commence 

 with a magnificent exposure of Middle Eocene (Pakisian) strata, 

 having a thickness of 1,300 feet, yielding Nummulites, Mollusca, 

 fish-remains, and species of Zeuglodon with remarkablj' primitive 

 dentition, and accompanying these, remains of a vertebrate land-fauna. 

 Then follows the Upper Eocene (Bartonian), 830 feet in thickness, 

 which has yielded abundance of vertebrate remains, the commonest 

 being Palceomastodon, Arsinoitlierium, Moeritherium, and Chelonians.^ 



Still, in ascending order one meets with OHgocene (Tongrian) 

 beds with a thickness of 100 feet of fluvio-marine beds, containing 

 also silicified tree trunks in great abundance, with a sheet of hard 

 basalt at the top. The youngest beds are gravel terraces and 

 lacustrine clays, deposited by the ever-diminishing waters of the 



' Dr. Andrews subsequently paid three other visits to Egypt, and the results of his 

 collections m the Fayiim, and of duplicate specimens contributed by the Survey, may' 

 now be seen in the fine series of objects exhibited in the cases of the Geological 

 Department (JSTatural History), Cromwell Road. We are glad to learn that 

 a Catalogue by Dr. Andrews, published under the joint auspices of the Trustees 

 of the British Museum and the Survey Department of Eg}^t, ^vill shortly appear, 

 with figures and descriptions of the fossil vertebrates of this remarkable region. 



3 See Geol. Mag., 1901, pp. 400-409 and 436-444; 1902, pp. 291-295 and 

 433-439 ; and also on the Geology, 1901, op. cit., pp. 540-546. 



^ See paper by Dr. C. W. Anchews, Geol. Mag., 1903, pp. 337-343. 



