[53]As the fossils occurring in these beds had been collected and described by Schweinfurth, Dames, and Mayer-Eymar, the writer did not spend further time on the island than was necessary for correlating the beds with his classification.
[54]Cossmann has recently described some Middle Eocene shells collected from the same locality, near Dimê, in a publication entitled Additions à la Faune Nummulitique d’Égypte, le Caire, 1901.
[55]T. pharaonica, Cossmann. A new species; apparently this is the form quoted by Blanckenhorn and Mayer-Eymar as T. angulata. According to Cossmann, however, T. pharaonica differs from T. angulata in several particulars, especially in being more thickset.
[56]Blanckenhorn, thinking that the bed capping the island of Geziret el Qorn is identical with that forming the plain around and to the north of Dimê, has, in a section recently published (Neues zur Geol. u. Palænt. Ægyptens, IV. Das Pliocän, etc., Zeitschr. d. Deutsch. geol. Gesellsch., Jahrg. 1901, Taf. XIV, fig. 2), inserted a number of faults letting the beds down continually to the south. The beds however are not identical, and no faults occur.
[57]This block was far too large to transport by camel, but it may be feasible to effect its removal to Cairo by cart when opportunity offers.
[58]Schweinfurth, op. cit. p. 139.
[59]A ruin discovered by Schweinfurth in 1886 and hence often spoken of as “Schweinfurth’s Temple.” Nothing certain is known as to its age or former use, but we may infer from its situation just beyond the limits of the high-level lacustrine clays, that it was built and inhabited only while Lake Mœris stood at its highest level.
[60]See Oppenheim, op. cit. p. 105.
[61]Details of a section of the lower beds of this group near the end of the lake have already been given on [p. 44.]
[62]As might be expected, vertebrate remains occur chiefly in the sandy and clayey beds. Skeletons of marine animals such as Zeuglodon and Eosiren may, however, be frequently observed embedded in the hard intercalated limestones. Limestone cranial-casts of these animals are thus sometimes found, and one of these has already been figured and described (Elliot Smith, The Brain of the Archæoceti, Proceedings Royal Society, Vol. 71, pp. 322-331. Some most beautifully formed casts from one of the limestone beds were eventually determined by Andrews to be casts of the air passages of crocodile skulls.