The topography and geology of the Fayum province of Egypt

Plate I.
NORTH SIDE OF THE BIRKET EL QURUN, LOOKING WEST.
SURVEY DEPARTMENT, EGYPT.
BY H. J. L. BEADNELL, F.G.S., F.R.G.S.
CAIRO National Printing Department 1905.
The geological survey of the desert surrounding the Fayûm was commenced in October 1898. At that time the area, although so near to Cairo, was little known; the Rohlfs Expedition maps marked the region as “unexplored,” and in fact with the exception of a publication by Schweinfurth, who had traversed the region from north to south, via Qasr el Sagha and Gar el Gehannem to Rayan, there was little information obtainable. The area being of considerable size (12,000 sq. kilom.) and almost unexplored, both geologically and topographically, the primary object was to construct as rapidly as possible a general map of the depression, at the same time laying down in broad outline the chief geological formations and trusting to future opportunity to examine in more detail places of special interest.
Commencing work at Sêla, on the eastern side of the depression, the survey was carried northwards along the east side of the cultivated lands and thence through the northern desert, up to the summit of the depression. After mapping westwards as far as the isolated hill-mass of Gar el Gehannem the work was temporarily suspended until, in the spring, the narrow defile of Wadi Muêla, and the Wadi Rayan, forming the southern part of the Fayûm depression, were provisionally examined.
During the winter’s work of 1902-03 a traverse was carried from Gar el Gehannem in a south-west direction through a hitherto unexplored part of the depression. On reaching a point midway between Cairo and the oasis of Baharia a connection was made eastwards to Wadi Rayan. In the winter of 1903-04 further exploration was carried out in the neighbourhood of Gar el Gehannem.
It will be convenient here to briefly relate the history of the discovery of the remarkable series of new and extinct animal forms, the recovery of which from the Fayûm deposits has created such widespread interest in the zoological world. When Schweinfurth crossed the region in 1879 he obtained fossil bones, which were examined and determined by Dames to be the remains of cetacea of the genus Zeuglodon , from certain beds of the escarpment west of Qasr el Sagha; these, it is believed, were the earliest vertebrate remains obtained from the Fayûm. During the early part of the survey of the district, remains of fish and crocodiles were frequently found in one of the beds of the Middle Eocene, probably on the same horizon as that from which Schweinfurth had collected. Fragments of bone were also commonly met with on a much higher horizon ( i.e. , near the base of the Fluvio-marine series) but nothing of particular interest was obtained, as no detailed search could be made at that time. In April 1901, during the survey of the western end of the Birket el Qurûn, some of the localities found to be bone-bearing in 1898 were re-visited in company with Dr. C. W. Andrews, who was in Egypt at the time and had accompanied the survey in order to obtain specimens of jackals, hares, etc., for the British Museum, in connection with the forthcoming work on Egyptian mammals. In one of these Dr. Andrews picked up several vertebrae which turned out to belong to a new species of Pterosphenus .