440 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[OHAP. 
inconsiderable port, Suez, situated at the southern entrance to 
the Suez Canal. Most of the scientific men and officers of 
the Vega expedition made an excursion thence to Cairo and the 
Pyramids, and were everywhere received in a very kind way. 
Among other things the Egyptian Geographical Society sent 
a deputation to welcome us under the leadership of the 
President of the Society, the American, Stone Pacha. He 
had in his youth visited Sweden, and appeared to have a 
very pleasant recollection of it. The Geographical Society 
gave a stately banquet in honour of the Vega expedition. 
An excursion was made to the Great Pyramids, and, as far as 
the short time permitted, to other remarkable places in and 
around the heap of ruins of all kinds and from all periods, 
which forms the capital of the Egypt of to-day. During our 
visit to the Pyramids the Svvedish-Nor^vegian consul-general, 
Bodtker, gave us a dinner in the European hotel there, and 
the same evening a ball was given us by the Italian consul- 
general, De Martino. A day was besides devoted by some of 
us, in company with M. Giuseppe Haimann, to a short excursion 
to the Mokattam Mountains, famous for the silicified tree- 
stems found there. I hoped along with the petrified wood to 
find some strata of clay-slate or schist with leaf-impressions. 
I was however unsuccessful in this, but I loaded heavily a 
carriage drawn by a pair of horses with large and small tree- 
stems converted into hard flint. These lie spread about in the 
desert in incredible masses, partly broken up into small pieces, 
partly as long fallen stems, without root or branches, but in 
a wonderfully good state of preservation. Probably they had 
originally lain imbedded in a layer of sand above the present 
surface of the desert. This layer has afterwards been carried 
away by storms, leaving the heavy masses of stone as a peculiar 
stratum upon the desert sand, which is not covered by any 
grassy sward. No root-stumps were found, and it thus ap¬ 
peared as if the stems had been carried by currents of water 
