﻿668 ME. H. J. L. BEADNELL ON THE EOCENE AND [NOV. I905, 



sandstone-hills on the east : the latter running round in a wide 

 curve, and not approaching the river until Jebel Silsila, 30 kilo- 

 metres (18| miles) farther north, is reached. In the centre of this 

 area, on the eastern bank of the river, is the temple of Kom Ombo, 

 from which the plain takes its name. 



As has long been recognized, the plain is superficially an extensive 

 alluvial deposit ; in addition to the sands and clays, with fluviatile 

 shells and occasional mammalian bones, bands of tufaceous lime- 

 stone are met with in the neighbourhood of Patira. These deposits 

 cannot be classed with the recent Nile alluvium, as they belong to 

 the period of the great Pleistocene lakes of the Nile Valley, and 

 have their surface some 25 metres (82 feet) above the high-flood 

 level of the present day. The plain apparently slopes westward, 

 and the deposits thin out in that direction, indicating that the 

 material was probably derived mostly from the higher hill-ranges 

 to the east, whence one or more feeder-streams entered the lake. 



North of Kom Ombo the river curves, and undercuts the western 

 desert, exposing a 20-metre (65-feet) section of very markedly- 

 foliated and false-bedded argillaceous strata. The lowest beds 

 visible are some 15 metres (49 or 50 feet) of finely-bedded clays, 

 often sandy in character, with bands of sand-rock ; they are 

 overlain by hard and soft, ferruginous, false-bedded sandstones, 

 passing upward, as noted by Schweinfurth, 1 into coarse grits and 

 pebbly beds. The gravelly layers are made up of round and sub- 

 angular quartz- and flint-pebbles, cemented in places into a 

 conglomerate. The general dip is northward, and a short distance 

 down stream the argillaceous beds are lost below river-level, the 

 coarse sandstones and interbedded conglomerates forming the entire 

 cliff. The last-named deposits may possibly be unconformable to 

 the clays below, and belong to the Pleistocene lacustrine period ; 

 on the other hand, the whole of the beds exposed may be of 

 Nubian-Sandstone age, but this can only be determined by more 

 detailed examination. 



Near the villages of Pares and Paghama, 20 kilometres (1 2| miles) 

 down stream of Kom-Ombo temple, Danian beds occur at river-level. 

 Schweinfurth (loc. Git.) was the first to note the unexpected occur- 

 rence of Upper Cretaceous and Lower Eocene limestones in this 

 neighbourhood, although he was unable to ascertain to what 

 particular part of the Upper Cretaceous succession the exposed beds 

 should be assigned. About 4 kilometres (2| miles) south of Pares 

 a, conspicuous area of white limestone occurs close to the river-bank, 

 its outcrop covering perhaps a square kilometre ("386 square mile). 

 On the south side the plain consists of grejr laminated claj^s, which 

 are overlain by from 20 to 25 metres (65 to 80 feet) of fairly hard 

 grey-and-white shaly marl and fissile chalky limestone, the whole 

 series dipping northwards at an angle of about 5°. The uppermost 

 bed is hard, grey, and siliceous. Possils are scarce, but the presence 

 of Echinocorys vulgaris, Schizorliabdus libycus, and Ostrea aff. vesicu- 

 lates establishes the age of these beds as Upper Danian, and as the 



1 Peterm. Mitth. vol. xlvii (1901) p. 10. 



