Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 145.djvu/148

132 132 MR. HORNER ON THE ALLUVIAL LAND OF EGYPT. eight men into the sand close to the platform, to a depth of 3 feet 2- inches under the inferior line of the lower layer of limestone, without meeting with any obstacle from any solid matter, and when passed in a slanting direction 30 inches within the edge of the limestone, still no impediment was met with. Sixteen men were employed to bale out water and sand until a diver was enabled to extract some sand from, under the limestone platform, which was fine-grained, white, and very clean. The total depth of the soils stink through in a vertical direction was 14 feet 6 inches to the level of the filtration water, which, together with the 8 feet 2 inches of sand penetrated beneath the filtration water, makes the total depth 22 feet 8 inches. The soils exhibit the following varieties and it will be observed that the Nile mud is here not deeper than 9 feet 11 inches. Speci- Feet. Inches. men. 9 Disturbed ground mixed with rubbish. 1. 4 11 Undisturbed,Nile sediment, with fragments of limestone about the size of a bean, rounded; also fragments of pottery. Slender vegetable fibres are scattered through the mass. It is all indurated earth, similar to the analysed specimen F, and to the sample No. I., but containing a small admixture of quartzose sand, and when moist- ened it kneads into a plastic clay. 2. 4. 10 Termed by HEKEKYAN BEY " rubbish soil." It is a mixture of the blackish brown earth, sample No. I ., with many calcareous particles and fragments of limestone, and some fragments of pottery. Near the bottom of the layer was found a band of 7 inches of sand. 3. 4 ... Coarse grey sand, with coral-shaped concretions of the sand, extending to the filtra- tion water. In this layer was found a portion of an eight-sided column of dark green basalt. Near the surface of the water, the sand contained the right upper molar of a ruminant, of the size of a sheep, and the first molar, left side, of the upper jaw of an ass (Equus Asinus)*. 14 6 Level of filtration water. 4. 1 6 Sand nearly identical with No. 3. 6 8 Sand of the same kind from underneath the lowest limestone flag, containing coral- shaped concretions of sand. 22 5 EXCAVATION B.- 100 yards west of A. Ten men were set to make this excavation, across the ancient great western avenue leading to the obelisk+. The total thickness of the soils sunk through, from the described by him. t In the various excavations which have been made in the prosecution o this inquiry, many objects of art of historical interest have been discovered; but as these do not come within the province of the Royal Society, I propose to give an account of them in a memoir to be laid before another learned body.
 * All the fossil bones found in the excavations were submitted by me to Professor OWEN, and have been