[Footnote 54: _Voyage à Méroé_, I., p. 189. The same observer also noted the presence of nummulites in the northern scarp, and the ferruginous nature of the sandstones composing the hills of the oasis (p. 190).] [Footnote 55: _Zeitsch. d. Ges. f. Erdkunde zu Berlin_, 1885, p. 134.] [Footnote 56: _Geol. d. Liby. Wüste_, 1883, pp. 122, 123.] [Footnote 57: _Le Ligurien et le Tongrien en Égypte_, Bull. Soc. Géol. France, sec. III, vol. XXI (1893).] [Footnote 58: BEADNELL, _op. cit. (Farafra Oasis)_ p. 28.] [Footnote 59: LYONS, _op. cit._ pp. 537-540.] [Footnote 60: _Op. cit._ (_Découvertes Géologiques Récentes_, etc.) pp. 855-856.] [Footnote 61: We except, of course, the very local areas where a Carboniferous fauna has been detected.] [Footnote 62: Compare, _op. cit. The Cretaceous Region of Abu Roash_, etc.] [Footnote 63: Or, as suggested above, these folds may have been produced in later times, i.e., Pliocene, when important earth-movements were known to have taken place in N.E. Africa and S.W. Asia.] CHAPTER VI. * * * * * ANTIQUITIES. The archæological remains of Baharia Oasis admit of a classification, based on their ages, into the following three groups:— (_a_) _Egyptian_, consisting principally of a stela of the 18th, a tomb of the 19th, and temples of the 26th Dynasty. (_b_) _Roman_, including the ruins of an arch and various other structures; also the subterranean aqueducts still in use for conveying water from springs to the cultivated land. (_c_) _Coptic_, embracing the ruins of several villages and a church. As the literature concerning these is mostly fragmentary and scattered, it may be well to describe briefly the various remains, following the above classification. (_a_) EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES. The oldest inscription yet found in Baharia is that on a stela of the time of Thothmes II, which was discovered by Ascherson in 1876 to the west of Bawitti. This stela is of historical importance, as being not only the oldest of all antiquities from the oases, but also older than any inscription bearing reference to the oases, and as proving that even at the beginning of the New Empire the Egyptians had taken possession of the oases and erected temples to their gods therein. Ascherson was also the first to record the existence of the ruins of an Egyptian temple in the oasis. This structure is marked on his map[64] as existing some 2 kilometres north-west of El Qasr; he appears, however, to have noted no inscription on the walls (the only parts remaining) and his brief references to it in his memoir do not give any data as to its age.