Notices of Memoirs. 271 



value for comparison with the fauna of those beds in Austria. 

 Professor Pavlovic has carefully consulted previous authors, and 

 thereby avoided the wholesale founding of new names ; but 

 unfortunately he does not figure his new species, and we are not 

 sufficiently acquainted with his language to rightly comprehend his 

 descriptions. We hope that in future he will be able to furnish 

 a German, French, or English translation of the diagnosis of new 

 forms, as otherwise his labours will be a closed book to most. The 

 publications of the Servian Academy contain much important matter 

 on the little-known geology and zoology of the country. 



XIII. — Geology of Egypt. (Geological Survey Eeport, 1899, 

 pt. ii. Survey Department, Public Works Ministry. Cairo, 1900.^ 

 " Kharga Oasis : its Topography and Geology." By John Ball. 

 116 pp., 19 maps and plates.) — This is the second of a series of 

 reports on districts in Egypt, the first of which has not yet reached 

 us. The district dealt with lies between the parallels of 26° and 24° 

 north latitude, to the west of the Nile. The geological formations 

 met with are the Cretaceous, represented by Nubian Sandstone and 

 clays, Exogyra Overwegi series, ' Ash-grey Clays,' White Chalk with 

 Ananchjtes ovata ; Eocene, represented by Esna shales, Lucina 

 thebaica and Operculina libyca limestones. Upper Limestone ; Pleisto- 

 cene and Eecent, calcareous tufa and sand dunes. The topography 

 of the Oasis is described in chapters under the general headings of 

 " The Limiting Escarpments," "The Hills within the Oasis," "The 

 Floor of the Oasis, with its Villages and Wells," " Antiquities." 

 Some twenty pages are devoted to the descriptive geology ; the 

 Cretaceous beds are correlated with the Senonian (?) and the Upper 

 and Lower Danian ; the Eocene beds seem to belong to the lowest 

 fossiliferous beds of the system. Mr. Ball gives an interesting 

 observation on the denuding power of the sand in windy weather : 

 a piece of tin plate exposed for two days had all its tin coating 

 removed, and a bottle was rendered quite dull in the same time 

 by the scratching. Where objects are protected from the sand, 

 as at Dush, where are inscriptions in red ochre on hard white chalk, 

 painted some 1,400 years ago, they remain in perfectly fresh state; 

 rain being unknown, and frost practically so. The maps and 

 sections appear to be excellent, and the whole report is of much 

 value to the geologist and Egyptologist. We trust that the whole 

 of Egypt will be described in a like manner. 



XIV. — Shorter Geological Notes. — Mr. James Mansergh 

 delivered an interesting Presidential Address to the Institution 

 of Civil Engineers on November 6th, 1900. His subject was 

 Water and Water Supply. After a capital sketch of the works 

 of the ancients in this direction, especially those of the Romans, 

 he dealt with the law of undei'ground water, dowsing, typical city 

 waterworks, etc. Mr. Mansergh approved of the Duke of Richmond's 

 Commission for buying out the London Water Companies, which 

 reported in 1869, and also considered the finding of Lord Llandaflf's 

 Commission of 1899 a workable scheme. 



^ This Report, though dated 1900, was not issm-d until April, 1901. 



