John Milne — Geological Notes on Cairo. 355 



tality in all tlie pieces of crockery wai'e, which either fell in the posi- 

 tion they now occupy, or else have gradually acquired it. 



Many pieces of the pottery are highly coloured, rich greens and 

 blues being common. On some of them designs, such as patterns of 

 flowers, are noticeable. Small pieces of granite and quartz are also 

 met with, and near the surface heads of old pipes and date-stones. 



Bits of Nummulitic Limestone and detached Nummulites have 

 travelled from the adjacent hills, to be imbedded with the rest ; and 

 on the eastern side of these heaps, near the summit, at about 

 two or three feet from the surface, and occasionally on the surface 

 itself, there are many recent shells. 



The material covering the sides and tops of these ranges of hills 

 only differs in being coarser than the rest, most of the finer debris 

 having been washed down into the valley during rainy seasons, 

 where it has accumulated and forms a fine mud-grit. 



Plain of the Tomhs of the Caliphs. — Lying between these rubbish 

 heaps and the range of Moccattam Hills there is a narrow sandy 

 plain, about a mile and a half in width. At the N.E. end of this, 

 opposite Jebel Aohmar or the Ked Mountain, numerous small ex- 

 cavations have been made beneath the surface (which has a crispness, 

 from the salt it contains), in order to obtain a fine greenish-grey 

 gritty sand used for domestic purposes. In these openings numerous 

 skulls and other human bones are seen strewn over the ground. 



Not far from these small openings a trench, from fourteen to 

 sixteen feet deep, had been excavated, about 300 yards in length, in the 

 direction of the waterworks, giving a good superficial section of the' 

 desert, but not sufficiently deep to reach the limestone seen in the 

 adjacent heights. For six feet from the surface there is a coarse 

 sand, with occasional fragments of pottery, and innumerable human 

 bones — skulls, femora, tibiaa, ribs, and in fact many almost perfect 

 skeletons. Judging from the number of these remains, the way in 

 which they are confusedly heaped together, and the wide extent of 

 ground over which they extend, they probably resulted from some 

 great epidemic, such as the plague, which may have visited the 

 city long ago. 



Looking at the depth at which these remains occur, and remembering 

 that in Eastern countries it is customary to bury barely beneath the 

 surface (?), it may be inferred, from the accumulation of sand and other 

 materials above these relics of humanity, that a considerable time 

 has elapsed since their interment. 



Below six feet no more pottery exists, and excepting the frag- 

 ment of a shell, only sand, containing innumerable flints and pieces 

 of silicified wood, is to be seen. 



Moccattam Quarries. — These truly historical quarries form a long 

 line of cliffs, overlooking the eastern and south-eastern side of 

 Cairo, the height of which above the Nile is about 800 feet, and 

 above Cairo 525 feet, as will be seen in the accompanying sketch 

 section, the elevations on which were approximately obtained by 

 several aneroid observations. (See Woodcut, Fig. 2.) 



The general dip of the beds forming this escarpment is towards 



