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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXV. No. 639 



fessor Osbom's disposal and further facili- 

 tating the work of preparation in every pos- 

 sible manner. Captain Lyons cooperated still 

 further by detailing Mr. Hartley T. Ferrar, 

 formerly geologist of the British Antarctic 

 Expedition, to accompany the party. Mr. 

 Ferrar's experience in dealing with the natives 

 subsequently proved to be of great service. 

 Natives who had been out with Messrs. Bead- 

 nell and Andrews were engaged. The heavy 

 equipment was sent round by rail to Tamia, 

 on the northern edge of the Fasdim oasis, there 

 to be transported by caravan two days' journey, 

 or thirty miles, to the nearest of the bone- 

 bearing localities. It thus came about that 

 exactly one week from the time of arrival in 

 Cairo the expedition started by caravan from 

 the Gizeh pyramids a few miles west of Cairo. 



On the journey south the caravan followed 

 the line of the pyramids of Gizeh, Abusir, 

 Sakkara, Deshiir and Lisht. This gave an 

 opportunity of observing the methods of ex- 

 cavation on a large scale by native labor. At 

 Gizeh Dr. Reissner is excavating for the 

 Boston Museum of Fine Arts, with a very 

 large force of men and boys, and at Lisht Dr. 

 Lythgow, another American, is just beginning 

 his explorations for the Metropolitan Museum 

 of Art. The natives are believed to be direct 

 descendants of the builders of the pyramids 

 of five thousand years ago and the tools and 

 carrying baskets have remained unchanged. 

 Wages have risen rapidly in recent years and 

 boys now receive from two to three piasters a 

 day, while the skilled men receive five piasters, 

 or twenty-five cents. At Saldiara are the 

 workings of the Egyptian Museum under Dr. 

 J. E. Quibell. The meeting here proved to be 

 a most fortunate one because Dr. Quibell 

 placed at the disposal of the American Mu- 

 seum party twelve of his best workmen, who 

 were engaged at once to proceed to the bone 

 beds. 



The bone beds lie exactly forty miles in a 

 southwest direction from Cairo. The route 

 taken by the party, following the southward 

 line of the pyramids and then turning due 

 west, covered seventy miles, or twenty-eight 

 hours' caravan. A freighted caravan moves 

 so precisely at the rate of 2J miles, or 4 kilo- 



meters, an hour that all desert distances in 

 Egypt are estimated in caravan hours. On. 

 the evening of February 5, one month from 

 the date of departure from New York, the 

 party reached the most easterly ' bone pits ' 

 as indicated on Mr. H. E. Beadnell's ad- 

 mirable survey map of the Fayum district. 

 Some of the Egyptians had arrived two days 

 before and had already begun excavation. 

 Two days later the Sakkara force of natives 

 arrived and the camp presented the most pic- 

 turesque and imposing aspect. Stretched out 

 on the gradually shelving bench of upper 

 Eocene sand were eleven tents. Twenty-six 

 camels were traveling to and fro on the three 

 days' distant water supply. Their groans 

 filled the early morning air. 



The topography is extremely interesting. 

 The Fayiim is a very ancient, perhaps late 

 Pliocene, depression, lying closely contiguous 

 to the Nile, which in Pleistocene times con- 

 verted the basin into a great lake substantially 

 similar in outline to the Lake Moeris of the 

 Ptolemies. Control of the inflow and reclama- 

 tion of the alluvial bottom began under the 

 ancient Egyptians until now the shallow and 

 brackish Birket el Kurun (Lake of the Horns) 

 stretches 41 meters below sea level and 15 

 miles east and west as the last and ever- 

 diminishing vestige of the ancient lake. It is 

 fed by the waste of the irrigation waters. The 

 easterly end of this lake is twenty-six miles 

 west of the Nile. Rising from the north 

 shore of the lake and overlooking it like the 

 tiers of an amphitheater are the benches of 

 Middle and Upper Eocene age, the lower steps 

 purely marine, the upper littoral and fluviatile, 

 which finally rise tier above tier, 341 meters, 

 to the summit platform of the Libyan desert. 

 In a gentle northeasterly and southwesterly 

 direction these benches extend for a distance 

 of 45 surveyed miles, beyond which the Eocene 

 is unsurveyed. This noble section has long 

 attracted the attention of German geologists 

 and the fossils of its lower marine members, 

 as studied by Schweinfurth, Blanckenhorn 

 and Zittel, afford proof of a close synchronism 

 with the Middle and Upper Eocene of the 

 Paris Basin. In the southwest is the famous 

 ' Zeuglodon Valley ' full of the skeletons of 



