JOURNAL 



ASIATIC SOCIETY 



Specimens offered to the Asiatic Society of Bengal* By Captain 

 Newbold, F. R. S. fyc.y Madras Army. 



EGYPT. 



No. 1. Crystallized gypsum, from the desert of Benihassan ; occurs in 



»thin layers and seams in the marls and loose sandstones imme- 

 diately below the gravel and sands composing the surface. 

 It is also found in the nummulitic limestone, and generally 

 associated with muriate of soda. 



2. Egyptian pebble, (variety of jasper), among the rolled pebbles 

 of quartz, chert, flinty slate, limestone, intermingled with a few 

 of the plutonic and hypogene rocks, that constitute the gravel 

 of the Egyptian desert. 



5. Silicified wood, from the fossil forest near Cairo. Specimens 

 which I took thence to England were kindly examined for me 

 by Mr. Robert Brown, who pronounced all those, the cha- 

 racters of which were distinguishable, dictotyledonous, and none 

 coniferous. I have however since found, on a recent second 

 visit to the site, specimens of decidedly monocotyledonous 

 wood. The beds of loose and compact sandstone, and sandstone 

 conglomerate imbedding the silicified wood of the Egyptian 

 and Libyan deserts strongly resemble those of Pondicherry, 

 where the wood is also fossilized by silex, and both mono- 

 cotyledonous and dicotyledonous. They rest alike on marine 



* This valuable collection has been duly received and placed in the Society's 

 Museum.— -Ed. 



No. 132. New Series, No. 48. 7 H 



