Hugh J. L. Beadnell — The Fayum Depression. 543 



them Schweinfurtli first collected cetacean remains. The mollusca 

 from these beds were described by Mayer-Eymar (Zittel, Palceonto- 

 graphica, n.f., x, 3 (xxs)) as having on the whole a Bartonian 

 aspect, but his determination seems much open to doubt, as they 

 imderlie the Upper Mokattam (Qasr el Sara series), the Parisian 

 age of which appears to be well established. The cetacean remains 

 were described by Dames, who compared them with the American 

 Zenglodon macrospondylus and Z. brachjspondylus, but did not con- 

 sider them to represent a new species. The same author, however, 

 subsequently described similar but more complete remains (also 

 collected by Schweinfurth, from beds belonging to my Qasr el 

 Sara series) as a new species, Z. Osiris. The upper division of the 

 Birket el Qurun series is lithologically rather similar, consisting of 

 alternating clays and sandstones. The beds, however, are generally 

 much richer in organic remains. In the uppermost beds very large 

 cetacean vertebrte occur, and these probably represent a second 

 species of Zenglodon, as although Dames considered the difference 

 in size of the bones of separate individuals to be sexual, the 

 apparently much greater upward range of the smaller type suggests 

 the existence of two species. 



4. Qasr el Sara Series. 



The exact junction between this and the last-described series is 

 purely arbitrary, some of the commonest fossils passing from one 

 to the other. The name of the series is taken from an ancient 

 ruined temple near which the beds are well developed. The Qasr 

 el Sara series (or Carolia beds) is perhaps the most important and 

 best marked division of the Fayum succession ; it forms a bold 

 escarpment of great length and height, consisting of a series of 

 very fossiliferous clays and limestones, with sands and sandstones 

 in the upper part of a total thickness of 175 metres. The 'Carolia 

 beds ' closely correspond to the Upper Mokattam division of the 

 Eocene at Cairo, but are much more fully developed in the Fayilm, 

 where they occupy a large part of the northern desert. In the 

 cliffs about 8 kilometres north of the Birket el Qurun the beds 

 form a steep double escarpment, running nearly parallel to the 

 northern shore of the lake. 



Vertebrate remains may be found in places in most of the beds of 

 this division, but the most prolific horizon is the 'bone-beds' proper, 

 a double band of clay separated by two layers of limestone, and 

 occurring about midway in the series. In this bed gi'oups of 

 skeletons, or portions of skeletons, are occasionally met with, sug- 

 gesting that they were carried out to sea by a sti'ong river current 

 and deposited at the tail-end of the latter. That the Qasr el Sara 

 series was deposited in fairly shallow water at no great distance 

 from land seems certain, no less from the common occurrence of 

 terrestrial animal remains than from the general lithological character 

 of the beds. The clays abound with impressions of plants, much 

 lignitic matter occurs, current-bedding is well seen in many of the 

 more sandy beds, while the thin interbedded bands of limestone 



