1885.] 



Report on the Deposits of the Nile Delta. 



213 



reappeared ; it was taken just afterwards, bat still shows some of the 

 " red flames." 



I took the duration of totality with a stop-watch, but afterwards by 

 a momentary inadvertence lost the record. 



I may add that at a time which I estimated to be from 15 to 

 20 seconds after the sun's reappearance, I could with the naked eye 

 easily see the coronal light round the preceding limb of the moon, and 

 called the attention of the bystanders to the fact. 



In conclusion I would add as some evidence of the clear sky which 

 we commonly get in Nelson, that from my own knowledge not only 

 the whole of this eclipse, but egress in both the late transits of 

 Venus, could not have been better seen than from this place. 



(Signed) A. S. Atkinson. 



III. "Report on a Series of Specimens of the Deposits of the 

 Nile Delta, obtained by the recent Boring Operations." By 

 J. W. Judd, F.R.S., Sec. G.S., Professor of Geology in the 

 Normal School of Science and Royal School of Mines. 

 Commiinicated by desire of the Delta Committee. Received 

 November 12, 1885. 



Neither of the borings made for the Royal Society, under the 

 superintendence of the Engineers attached to the Army of Occupation 

 in Egypt, appears to have reached the rocky floor of the Nile- Valley, 

 nor do the samples examined show any indication of an approach to 

 such floor. What were at first supposed to be pebbles in one of the 

 samples from Tantah, prove on examination to be calcareous con- 

 cretions (" race" or "kunknr"). 



Nevertheless these borings appear to have reached a greater depth 

 than all previous ones in the same district, except the boring made 

 near the Barrage, which is said to have attained a depth of 122 feet 

 without reaching the rock, and one at Rosetta which exceeded 

 153 feet. The deepest boring made by the French engineers in 1799, 

 that at Siut, attained a depth of 77 feet 7f inches ; at a later date 

 M. Linant de Bellefonds (Linant Bey) carried a boring near the apex 

 of the Delta to the depth of 72 feet. In the case of the excavations 

 made for Mr. Horner about thirty years ago, with the aid of a grant 

 from the Donation Fund of the Royal Society, few of the borings 

 exceeded 50 feet in depth ; the deepest being that at Memphis, which 

 reached 59 feet 10 inches. The three borings now reported upon 

 have been carried to depths of 45, 73, and 84 feet respectively. 



The samples from these borings, like those examined by 

 Mr. Horner, show that the delta-deposits all consist of admixtures, in 



