﻿672 ME. H. J. L. BEADNELL ON THE EOCENE AND [Nov. I905, 



Section in the Hills east of Edfu Railway-station. (In descending order.) 



1. Hard oyster-limestone, very cherty in part. Oysters of 0. Forgemolli, 



0. Villei types. (2 metres = 65 feet.) 



2. Thinly-bedded shaly sandstones. (10 metres = 33 feet.) 



3. Hard ferruginous bone-and-eoprolite bed, with ferruginous concretions. 



(| to 2 metres = 1 § to 6^ feet.) 



4. Grey laminated clays ; cbelonian (?) remains. Hard sandy bed below. 



(12 metres = 39J feet.) 



5. Yellow-weathering, drab-coloured, flaggy, ripple-marked sandstone with 



shaly partings. Plant-remains. 



6. Ironstained grey, green, and blackish saliferous clays, with ferruginous 



concretions and bauds of shale and sandstone. Plant-remains. 



7. Yellow-green clays, with a mottled concretionary band. At the base 



6 metres (or 19f feet) of laminated clays, with plant-impressions. 



8. Hard brown (calcareous) sandstone, with occasional shell-casts. 



9. Laminated ironstained grey clays, with plant-remains. (8 m. = 26£ feet.) 



10. Ripple-marked flaggy sandstones with partings of softer sandy beds. 



JBand of cone-in-cone near the top (30 cm., or about 1 foot). At the 

 summit is a hard ferruginous band, giving rise to a subsidiary plateau. 



11. Soft shaly sandstone, interleaved with sandy shales. Occasional ferruginoxis 



concretionary bands. 



12. Flaggy, ripple-marked yellowish sandstones, with red ferruginous con- 



cretionary bands. 



13. Greenish, often sandy, clays. 



Base, cultivation-level. 



Approximate total thickness: 114 metres = 374 feet. 



The presence of well-developed cone-in-cone structure in one of 

 the argillaceous beds is interesting, as this seems to be the first 

 record of its occurrence in this country. In the hills farther back, 

 about a kilometre north-west of the triangulation-beacon (5-j kilom. 

 = 3 J miles north-east of Edfu Railway-station), a hard bed of 

 beautifully-developed cone-in-cone occurs, probably on the same 

 horizon as that mentioned in the section. The oyster-limestone 

 here is notable, on account of its hard siliceous character ; usually 

 it forms the summits of the higher hills, and is the youngest bed in 

 the district. 



Throughout this region the clays and shales contain varying 

 quantities of nitrate of soda, and are largely worked by the 

 peasants for use as fertilizers. 



(4) El Kab and Mahamid. 



One of the chief points of interest in this neighbourhood is the 

 occurrence of springs in the beds of the wadis emerging at El Kab 

 and Mahamid. The water is clear, but insipid and ferruginous to 

 the taste. As the basal slopes of the hills forming the Mahamid 

 wadi are so often encrusted with a saline deposit, I am inclined to 

 believe that the water issues from the sandstones themselves, and 

 is not derived from the Nile- Valley gravels. 



Near Mahamid the summits of many of the hills and ridges are 

 capped by a bed of rolled Eocene pebbles, shoAving that the Pleistocene 

 high-level lake extended all over this region, though only where 



