_The return journey from Baharia Oasis to Minia_ was made, as already
mentioned, across the open desert, not following any road. The
starting-point was the point on the southern scarp of the oasis,
where the Farafra road leaves Baharia. Our observations give for the
position of this point[25] lat. 27° 46′ 13″ N. long. 28° 32′
47″ E. of Greenwich; height above sea level, 247 metres. The course
was shaped so as to reach the village of Nasl Nadiub Lengat, whence
the outward traverse had started, so as to give a closed polygon of
survey-lines. The following topographical and geological notes were
taken on the journey.
The first 2½ kilometres of the way, going about S.S.E., lay over
a plateau of sandy limestone, often mammilated and strewn with
limonite-fragments. Sand-dunes of small size were passed on the
left. An ascent was then made of some 35 metres on to a flat-topped
ridge, consisting of white and yellow marls and clays, capped by
a horizontal bed of hard brown calcareous grit, passing into brown
crystalline limestone with calcite shell-casts. On this ridge, which
is about 600 metres in width at the place seen, a turn was made so as
to go almost due east. The descent from the ridge on the other side
is on to a plain strewn with whitish-brown laminated and mammilated
limestone and some limonite, and from the plain rise hills showing
the same structure as the ridge just crossed. A camel-road running
south was crossed 7 kilometres from the starting-point, and beyond
this, the ground having gradually risen to the level of the brown
calcareous grit, we came among numerous low hills; these consist
of white chalk beds, capped by sandy greyish limestone and then by
thick beds of harder greyish-white limestone, weathered grey on the
surface. No fossils were seen here, but continuing the journey east,
over uneven ground of white and greyish limestone of considerable
hardness, a small hill was met with, at about 12 kilometres from the
starting-point, and found to consist of limestone with _Nummulites_,
and these foraminifera were found in great abundance a little further
on. The finding of these forms, so distinctively Eocene, is important
as showing that whatever the age of the limestones at the actual
edge of the south part of the oasis may be, the beds forming the
plateau only a few kilometres east of the oasis are, like those which
form the top of the northern scarp, of undoubted Eocene age. The
nummulites were visible in the rocks of the plateau till about 17
kilometres from the starting-point, none being noticed further on
till the neighbourhood of the great sand-dunes was reached. At
25 kilometres a slight depression containing numerous hills of
white chalk was entered. The floor of this depression, 267 metres
above sea-level, is strewn with fragments of crystalline calcite,
probably derived from veins or druses in the chalk. The beds here
dip slightly to the south. About 3 kilometres further on the beds dip
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