W. Carruthers — Petrified Forest near Cairo. 307 



by a few dry rain-channels," excites, by the remarkable contrast of 

 the present with what is apparently the not far distant past, the 

 wonder of the most careless observer. So vividly has this impressed 

 the imagination of travellers that they have without hesitation cor- 

 related the fossil stems with the existing vegetation of Egypt. Burck- 

 hardt thought they were petrified date-trees, Mr. Holroyd referred them 

 to the Doom-palm, and, to give an air of scientific accuracy to his 

 determination, he adds the systematic name of the species ( Crucifera 

 Thebaica). Even the accurate "Murray," in his "Handbook for 

 Travellers in Egypt," (1867) speaks of the specimens as palms, and 

 a learned commentator, " A. C. S.," gets into raptures over the re- 

 markable petrified palms which he found in situ (p. 156). I must 

 add, however, that Gardiner Wilkinson, the author of the Handbook, 

 refers to branched and thorn-bearing trees, as well as palms ; and be- 

 sides these, he says there are " some jointed stems resembling bamboos, 

 one of which was about 15 feet long, broken at each of the knots. A 

 small one given by me to the British Museum has rather the character 

 oi'oxL Uquisetum." This specimen is a cylindrical fragment of Nicolia 

 JEgyptiaca (Ung.), 18 inches long and 4 inches in diameter. It has 

 several irregular transverse fissures, filled in with quartz, which has 

 more successfully resisted the weathering than the body of the fossil ; 

 hence, the fissures stand out as ridges. A small, stout base of a 

 branch projects for 2 inches from the middle of the specimen. So 

 that this equisetacious bamboo as well as the palms are really the same 

 as the branched and thorn-bearing trees of Wilkinson — the Nicolia 

 jEgyptiaca of Unger. Newbold (Quart. Journ. G-eol. Soc. vol. iv. p. 

 352) describes the fossils as resembling in external aspect the present 

 palm of Egypt, but internally showing the wood arranged in annular 

 concentric layers, as in exogenous stems. A few, he says, exhibited 

 externally longitudinal fibres intersected at intervals from two to 

 three feet asunder by transverse divisions, giving the trunk the ap- 

 pearance of a gigantic calamite, although the internal structure is 

 that of dicotyledonous wood. He submitted his specimens to Kobert 

 Brown, who determined that they were dicotyledonous, but not 

 Coniferous. The late Prof. Unger has published a valuable account 

 of his investigation of the woods which he inspected in their native lo- 

 cality (Sitzungberichte Math.-Naturw. ClasseAkad. Vienna, vol. xxxiii. 

 p. 209). He further examined a camel's load of specimens brought 

 home by Kotschy, and determined that they all belonged to one 

 species, to which he had already given the name Nicolia ^gyptiaca 

 (Endlicher's Genera Plantarum, Suppl. II. p. 102). 



When Prof. Owen visited the " Fossil Forest," in the beginning of 

 1869, he collected a large series of specimens, which, on his return, 

 he kindly placed in my hands for examination. I had a number of 

 microscopic sections made, and had the satisfaction of determining 

 the existence of a second species. 



This extensive collection of silicified stems occurs in the Suez 

 desert, about seven miles east by south from Cairo. Newbold says, 

 " The area they cover is about four miles east and west, and three 

 miles and a half north and south. Many of the trunks lie loosely 



