52 Hugli J. L. Bmdnell — Flowing Wells, Kharga Oasis. 



wall of the depression, I have adopted the convenient term of 

 " Plateau Limestone." Eetween it and the White Chalk of the 

 Upper Cretaceous come the Esna Shales and Marls, which, as I have 

 shown in a former paper, are to be regarded as passage beds between 

 the Cretaceous and Eocene systems.^ It is true that in the lower 

 layers fossils with typical Cretaceous affinities occur, but on the other 

 liand forms of equally pronounced Eocene character are found in the 

 xipper bands. Lithologically there is nothing to distinguish one part 

 of the band from another ; typically it is made up of laminated shales, 

 which by increase of carbonate of lime pass insensibly both upwards 

 and downwards into the limestones above and below. The total 

 thickness of the stage varies greatly in different parts of the oasis ; 

 this variation was regarded by Ball" as indicating an unconformity 

 between the Eocene and Cretaceous, whereas it is due solely to the 

 fact that varying thicknesses of the upper and lower portions become 

 in places so markedly calcareous as to be indistinguishable from the 

 limestones above and below. In some cases practically the whole, 

 as a band of laminated shale, has disappeared, and then the Cretaceous 

 limestones merge directly into those of the Eocene above. 



Although the shales below the White Chalk differ little in colour 

 from the Esna Shales above or from the shales of the Exogyra series 

 below, I have retained Zittel's term "ash-grey shales" — though 

 ash-grey is by no means their usual tint — to avoid the possibility of 

 confusion. They are grouped most naturally with the White Chalk, 

 which nearly everywhere forms a marked band at their summit ; 

 other less conspicuous bands of chalk or chalky marl sometimes occur 

 intercalated in the shales on a lower horizon. 



With regard to the Exogyra beds, it is only necessary to remark here 

 that they are almost everywhere marked by hard bands made up of 

 the shells of fossil oysters. Below comes a group of shales containing 

 a number of prominent intercalated bands composed of fish-bones, 

 coprolites, and phosphatic nodules ; the series is so well marked in 

 northern Kharga that it is difficult to understand how it had until 

 recently escaped notice, yet that such was the case is evident, as Ball 

 makes no mention of the beds in his report nor are they shown in the 

 published sections. Considering the great development of phosphatic 

 beds in the neighbouring oasis of Dakhla, the extension and thickness 

 of which had been fully mapped and reported on by me in 1898,^ 

 it was no surprise to find similar beds in Kharga when I made a 

 casual examination of the succession at one or two points in the early 

 months of 1905. Since then I have traced the beds over a large area 

 of northern Kharga, and found them to consist as a rule of an upper 

 brown coloured series, individual beds of which in places exceed 

 two metres in thickness, and a lower division consisting of three or 

 four bands of harder and lighter-coloured rock, in which the nodules 

 are sometimes cemented by iron pyrites. These bone-beds mark the 



1 Op. cit. : Q.J.G.S., vol. ki (1905), p. 675. 

 ~ Op. cit., p. 94. 



* " Dalclila Oasis: its topography and geology": Egypt. Geol. Surv. Report, 

 Cairo, 1901. 



