X 
INTKODUCTION. 
I'^rom tliis 'i'ablo it will bo gathered that, speaking generally, from earlier to later 
times the strata of the I’ayum were deposited nearer and nearer to some land-mass. 
In the early Eocene the ])resence of thick marine beds far to the southwards shows 
that the shores of the Ethiopian continent were still remote from the area now under 
discussion ; and this state of things seems to have continued till the Middle Eocene, as 
shown by the thick nummulitic beds of the Wadi Ilayan series, and the exclusively 
marine character of the fossils both of those beds, the Eavine beds, and the Birket-el- 
Qtiruu series above. In the Qasr-el-Sagha series, on the other hand, there is much 
evidence that the shore was not far off, the jiresence of thick beds of clay, often 
current-bedded and containing numerous impressions of leaves, as well as the 
occurrence of land-mammals pointing to this conclusion. In fact, the deposits at this 
horizon may be regarded as partly marine and partly littoral, there having been 
many small oscillations of level. In the Eluvio-marine (Upper Eocene) beds above, 
the near presence of a large land-mass is still more obvious, these deposits being, in 
fact, almost entirely fluviatile, and probably representing the remains of the delta of a 
great river whicli Mr. Eeadnell, for various reasons, considers flowed from the 
south-west At or near the end of the Eocene period this state of things was 
interrupted by an outburst of volcanic activity, which gave rise to the interbedded 
basalt-sheets of the Jebel-el-Qatrani (see Map) ; but after this the fluviatile conditions 
were again resumed and appear to have continued with some interruptions throughout 
the Oligocene, Miocene, and, in ])art at least, the Pliocene periods. Throughout this 
vast epoch there seems to have been a general tendency towards a gradual advance of the 
coast-line northwards, and such interruptions and oscillations as did occur are marked 
by the presence of interbedded marine, littoral, and perhaps, in a few cases, lacustrine 
deposits. This long series of Eluvio-marine beds offers just the conditions necessary 
for the preservation of a succession of vertebrate faunas, and, in fact, these have already 
been found at two horizons in addition to the Eocene beds with which this Catalogue 
is mainly concerned, namely, in the Lower Miocene and the Middle Pliocene. So 
long ago as about 1898, Dr. Elanckenhorn discovered remains of a Ehinoceros and of 
an Anthracotheroid Mammal {Brachyodus africanus), together with other vertebrate 
fossils, in the Lower Miocene beds of Mogara, which lies to the north-west of the 
Fayum about five days’ march, d'his collection was afterwards described by the present 
writer (4, 5j, who later, with the late IMr. Earron of the Egyptian Survey, revisited 
the locality, where they obtained, in addition to the forms already known, remains of 
* ‘ deport oil the rayuiii rrovince,’ p. OG. 
