Hugh J. L. Bcadnell — The Fayiun Dejyressiot). 541 



In the early part of 1901 I spent a short time in the Fayum 

 exploring the borders of the Birket el Qurun lake, on which occasion 

 Dr. C. W. Andrews, of the British Museum, who happened to be in 

 Egypt at the time, accompanied me. On our return journey to 

 Cairo we visited some of the localities I had found to be bone- 

 bearing in 1898, and on our last day's march were most fortunate 

 in crossing the Eocene escarpments at a point where a number of 

 well-preserved marine and terrestrial vertebrate remains lay exposed 

 on the surface of the outcrop of the bone-beds. On reporting, 

 Capt. H. G. Lyons, Director-General of the Survey Department, at 

 once organized a special collecting expedition ; Dr. Andrews again 

 accompanied me, and together we succeeded in obtaining a unique 

 collection of almost entirely new mammals and reptiles. A brief 

 description of these is now being published by my companion in 

 the Geological Magazine (see September and October issues), 

 and the object of the present paper is to give a preliminary account 

 of the geology of the district from which these interesting remains 

 were obtained. 



General Succession. 



The oldest beds found in the depression are the clays, marls, 

 and limestones, with Nummulites gizehensis, of Middle Eocene age. 

 These are succeeded by a group of white marly limestones and 

 gypseous clays, which largely underlie the cultivated land of the 

 Fayum. They are followed by a series consisting of clays, sand- 

 stones, and calcareous grits, some beds of which are characterized 

 by the abundance of Operculina. The latter series is followed by 

 the uppermost marine Eocene beds (Carolia beds), an alternating 

 group of clays, sandstones, and limestones, characterized by an 

 abundant vertebrate and invertebrate fauna, and equivalent to the 

 Upper Mokattam beds of Cairo. Above the ' Carolia beds,' and 

 well marked off from them, both lithologically and palteontologically, 

 is found a great thickness of variegated sands and sandstones, clays, 

 and marls, divided near the summit by one or more thick intercalated 

 lava sheets. These variegated beds are largely of fluvio-marine origin 

 and are of Upper Eocene - Lower Oligocene age. No Miocene 

 deposits have been recognized within the area, but further north, 

 as at Mogara, Lower Miocene beds occur, and it is probable that 

 a continuous conformable series of lithologically similar deposits 

 extends from the summit of the Fayum escarpment (Lower Oligocene) 

 to the Mogara Miocene beds. 



The Pliocene is probably represented by the great masses of 

 gravel, or raised beaches, which form such a marked feature in 

 the geology of the district. Fossiliferous Pliocene deposits have 

 also been recorded from the south part of the area by Schweinfurth. 

 Of Post-Pliocene age we may mention the ancient high-level 

 lacustrine clays, the cultivated alluvial loams, and the desert 

 sand-dunes. 



The following table shows the sequence of sti-ata known in the 

 Fay vim and the classification adopted by the writer : — 



