TRANSLATIONS AND NOTICES 



OP 



.GEOLOGICAL MEMOIRS. 



On the Fossil Wood of Egypt. By Prof. Ungee. 



[Proc. Imp. Acad. Vienna, October 1858.] 



Prof. Ungee gave a notice of the fossil forest near Cairo, and of some 

 other deposits of fossil wood in Egypt, which he had lately investi- 

 gated in person. The so-called *^ fossil forest" near Cairo is an 

 accumulation of wood-fragments spread over a surface of several 

 square miles, and belonging, without exception, to the Nicolia 

 ^gyptiaca, Unger. The fragments are loosely imbedded in the 

 sand of the desert, between Cairo and Suez, and may be observed in 

 their original situation, in Tertiary sandstone, at the Gibel Akmar, 

 a locality strikingly analogous to the sandstone containing wood- 

 stems near Gleischeuberg in Styria. Prof. Unger, in explanation of 

 this phenomenon, supposes the masses of wood to have been drifted 

 into a basin separated from the main sea and filled with water 

 saturated with silica. 



Another deposit of fossil wood, already known by specimens 

 brought to Europe by M. Eussegger, is near Assuan (Syene) on the 

 Egypto-Nubian frontier. A third occurs near Um-Ombos, in the 

 desert west of the Me. The fossil wood of Assuan and of Um-Ombos 

 belongs to an undescribed Coniferous tree, of the Araucarian divi- 

 sion ; and for it Prof. Unger proposed the systematic denomination 

 of Dacloxylon ^gyptiacum. The original bed is undoubtedly the 

 sandstone which occurs extensively in Upper Egypt and Nubia, 

 between the Granite and the Cretaceous beds, .but hitherto of 

 doubtful rank in the Geological Series, as no organic remains have 

 been found in it. 



This fossil wood of Egypt, analogous to two species known to 

 occur in the palaeozoic (Devonian) rocks, may supply an argument 

 for ranking in the Permian, rather than in the Keuper or the Creta- 

 ceous formation, the sandstone used by the ancient Egyptians for 

 their colossal constructions. 



[Count M.] 



VOL. XV. PART n. 



