314 PKOF. E. HULL ON THE GEOLOGY OP THE NILE VALLEY. [May 1 896, 



both the cultivated plain and terrace No. 2 extend over very large 

 areas. The latter is very distinct, rising in a bare yellowish slope 

 of 40 to 50 feet (estimated) above terrace No. 1, and stretching to 

 the flanks of the valley. 



(c) On the right bank of the Nile at El Kab, about 15 miles 

 south of Esneh, both terraces are clearly defined. Here a village of 

 mud-huts is built upon terrace No. 2, below which is the cultivated 

 flat, and behind rises a fine cliff of Cretaceous limestone. 



(d) The sloping plain on which was built the city of Thebes 

 is referable to the second terrace. It consists of beds of sand and 

 gravel, laid open near the temple of Medinet Abu, bounded inwards 

 by the grand semicircular escarpment of the Eocene beds, and 

 towards the river by the wide plain, richly cultivated and abun- 

 dantly watered at Nile flood. From this plain rise in solitary 

 grandeur the Colossi of Memnon, 1 and as it is improbable that they 

 were originally (over 3300 years ago) erected on a basis liable to 

 the floods of the Nile, we have here evidence that the bed of the 

 river and the plains on its banks have been raised by repeated de- 

 positions of sediment ; — an inference borne out by other examples 

 of a similar kind. Terrace No. 2 forms a wide plain west of Thebes, 

 but it becomes very narrow at Kurnah in the opposite direction. 

 From this neighbourhood, at El Waddi, Gen. Pitt-Rivers obtained 

 some flint-flakes supposed to be of human workmanship, embedded 

 in banks of undisturbed gravel. 2 



(e) Opposite Kom Ombo, on the western bank of the river, the 

 floor of the old Nile is laid open on the banks of the river itself, 

 and is peculiarly interesting, as it is composed of laminated brownish 

 mud lying at the foot of a range of sandhills, and rising from 30 to 

 50 feet above the margin of high Nile. I give here a sketch of this 

 interesting section, which was pointed out to me by Capt. Lyons. 



Fig. 4. — Terrace of Old Nile mud near Kom Ombo. 



l=Low terrace of clay, covered with vegetation. 



2= Old terrace of Nile mud, laminated : 30 to 40 feet above the highest floods. 



3= Bank of sandhills. Nile in foreground. 



1 1500 b.c. according to Dr. Budge, 'The Nile,' 3rd ed. p. 13; 1400 b.c. 

 according to Prof. Rawlinson, ' Ancient History,' p. 39. 



2 Journ. Anthrop. Inst., May 1882 ; quoted by Prestwich, ' Geology,' vol. ii. 

 p. 483. Dawson, however, doubts that these were the work of man (' Modern 

 Science in Bible Lands,' Appendix, 1888, p. 541). 



