254 The Upper Cretaceous Floras of the World 



logical horizons. According to Hume * it is of Carboniferous age on Sinai 

 and in the Wady Araba. In the ISTile valley and adjacent areas it is over- 

 lain by paleontologically recognizable Cenomanian deposits in the north 

 and evidently represents the littoral sediments of a southwardly trans- 

 gressing Cretaceous sea, since to the southward it represents both the 

 Turonian and Emseherian, being directly overlain by fossiliferous beds of 

 Campanian age. Leaf-bearing layers are mentioned in various official 

 publications of the Egyptian Survey, 2 but if collections have ever been 

 made they have never been submitted to a competent paleobotanist. In 

 Heer's paper on the fossil fruits of the Xharga oasis (op. cit.) the follow- 

 ing species are described : 



Diospyros sctiioeinfurthi Heer 

 Palmacites rimosus Heer 

 Royena desertorium Heer 



These deposits are referred to the Danian by Ball, 3 who also refers 

 Nicolia cegyptiaca Unger and Araucarioxylon cegypticum Schenck to the 

 Campanian. Since the latter both occur in the determined Lower Oli- 

 gocene east of Cairo, their existence in the Upper Cretaceous is extremely 

 doubtful and denotes either incorrect determination or correlation. 

 De Eoziere " as early as 1826 mentioned a leaf impression resembling a 

 sycamore in the sandstone near Assouan, and in 1910 Couyat 6 announced 

 the discovery of a considerable collection of plants from the Nubian sand- 

 stone near this locality. A preliminary account of these plants by Couyat 

 and Fritel 8 appeared that same year and a promised detailed account has 

 not yet been published. They announce the presence of three mono- 

 cotyledons, one a palm, and eight dicotyledons including Juglandites, 



1 Hume, W. F., Explanatory Notes to accompany the Geological Map of 

 Egypt. Cairo, 1912. 



2 E. g., in Survey Department, Paper No. 1, Cairo, 1907. 



3 Ball, John, Survey Dept. Rept, 1899. pt. ii, 1900. 



4 De Roziere, Description de l'Egypte, tome xxi, 1826, p. 12., 



E Couyat, J., Sur un nouveau gisement de feuilles fossiles en Egypte. Bull. 

 Soc. geol., France, ser. 4, tome x, 1910, p. 29. 



6 Couyat, J., and Fritel, P. H., Sur la presence d'empreintes vegetales dans 

 le gres nuhien des environs d' Assouan. Comptes rendus. Acad. Sci., tome cli, 

 1910, pp. 961-964. 



