266 Reviens — Dr. C. W. Andrews — 



I?, IE "V I E "Vv^ 3- 



I. The Extinct Animals of Egypt. A Descriptive Catalogue 



OF THE Tertiary Vertebrata of the Fayuji, Egypt, based on 

 the Collectiou of the Eg3'ptiaii Government in the Geological 

 Museum, Cairo, and on the collection in the British Museum 

 (Natural History), London. By Charles William Andreavs, 

 D.Sc, F.R.S. Printed hy order of the Trustees of the 

 British Museum, 1906. 4to ; pp. xxxviii and 324, with a 

 photogravure page frontispiece of the skull of Arsinoithermm 

 Zitteli, 99 figures in the text, and 26 quarto plates. (London : 

 sold by Dulau & Co., 37, Soho Square, W., and other Booksellers. 

 Price 35s.) 



AMONG recent discoveries in palaeontology none have excited 

 more interest than the Lower Tertiary Vertebrate faunas of 

 the Fayiim. They add so much to our knowledge of the primitive 

 Mammalia, especially of the Hyracoidea, Proboscidea, Sirenia, and 

 Cetacea, that an exhaustive account of them, so far as discovered, 

 bad become essential. The Trustees of the British Museum have 

 therefore availed themselves of the generous co-operation of the 

 Egyptian Government to produce a Descriptive Catalogue of all 

 the more important fossils by which these ancient faunas are at 

 present known. The collection now in the Geological Museum, 

 Cairo, was made by Mr. H. J. L. Beadnell under the direction of 

 Captain H. G. Lyons, F.R.S., Director-General of the Egyptian 

 Surveys, while that in the Geological Department of the British 

 Museum was made partly by Dr. C. W. Andrews, the author of this 

 Descriptive Catalogue, and partly by donation of duplicates from the 

 Egyptian Government. During the past four years Dr. Andrews has 

 had the opportunity of studying both tliese collections in detail, and 

 has himself enjoyed the rare pleasure of assisting in the extraction 

 of many of the specimens from the matrix in the Fayiim. The result 

 is the present valuable monograph, which testifies alike to the ability 

 of the author and the wise generosity of the Trustees in instigating its 

 publication. 



The Fayum, the lake-province of Egypt, is a district occupying a 

 depression in the desert to the west of the Nile Valley opposite Wasta, 

 a small town about fifty-seven miles south of Cairo. This depression, 

 which is roughly circular in outline, is separated from the river-valley 

 by a belt of desert varying in width from about a mile and a half to 

 some six or seven miles, and crossed at one point by a canal, the 

 Bahr-el-Yusef, which runs through a narrow strip of low ground, 

 and is practically the only source of water-supply for the whole 

 district. The water thus brought in from the Nile is distributed by 

 irrigation canals to the cultivated part of the district, and the surplus 

 eventually finds its way through a number of channels, some of which 

 form picturesque gorges, to the lowest part of the depression, occupied 

 by a large expanse of brackish water, the Birket-el-Qurun. This 

 lake is about twenty-five miles long, with a maximum width of only 



