30 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [DcC. 9, 



in the place where they are now found. It may well be, therefore, 

 that these represent the operations of larger furnaces, worked per- 

 haps at a later period, when the art of metallurgy was further 

 advanced than was the case when the thinner and less perfectly 

 melted slags were produced. 



At the lower end of the Nash valley there is another slag-heap, of 

 smaller extent, but in other respects similar to that at -the springs. 

 A third was found in Wady Gharandel, upon a terrace of JS'ummulitic 

 or Cretaceous limestone, far away from any place producing copper- 

 ores, but near water, proving that the sites for smelting- works were 

 determined chiefly by the presence of springs, where there is usually 

 some quantity of wood, even at the present time. The charcoal used 

 for smelting appears to have been derived from the Acacia vera, 

 which still flourishes round the springs ; and though of late years 

 the wood has been much cut down, in order to produce charcoal for 

 the supply of Suez and Cairo, many of the trees are of very great 

 antiquity. 



I was unable to find any traces of the ruins of large calcining fur- 

 naces, and basins that had probably served as stamps and catch-pits, 

 as described by Dr. Pigari Bey*. Probably these are only naturally 

 jointed piles of stone, produced by the action of the weather on the 

 sandstone, which breaks up into very regularly shaped masses. It 

 cannot be supposed that the ancient Egyptians were in the habit of 

 subjecting their ores to any complex mechanical treatment, still less 

 to the process of stamping and washing, especially as, according 

 to Haupt, the use of stamps was not introduced in mining until the 

 16th century. 



Nash Fault (see PL I. fig. 5) — Sandstone Outliers. — The fault run- 

 ning through the ISTasb valley has a westerly downthrow of about 600 

 feet. A second fault of the same kind, nearly parallel, and with a 

 downthrow in the same direction, traverses the next higher valley, 

 known as "Wady Lechian, where the lower crystalline schists, studded 

 with numerous intrusive dykes, come to the surface and form a very 

 rough ridge about 500 feet in height, above which the red-sandstone 

 series occurs in the usual order, attaining a height of about 1000 feet 

 more in the peak of Om Eiglaine, which is really a great outlier of 

 nearly horizontal sandstone upon the plateau of crystalline rocks, the 

 summit being a narrow ridge of about 30 or 40 yards in length and 

 about 3600 feet above the sea-level (3609 feet by barometrical deter- 

 mination). Several other outliers of the same character, but rising 

 to greater heights, are seen from the top of Om Riglaine, the most 

 important being a twin peak close by and two great masses to the 

 eastward, which do not appear to have any special name other than 

 Gharabi, which is applied by the Arabs as a kind of generic term 

 to all mountains that are not endowed with names derived from 

 poetical or legendary sources. In Wady Suoug, or Saaou, to the 

 south-east of Nasb, the crystalline schists are continuously exposed 

 at the bottom of the cliff", the upper sandstone being cut up into a 

 number of tributary valleys. On the northern side, however, the 



* 0^. cit. vol. ii. p. 647. 



