Page:An Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine.djvu/104

88 88 THE JORDAN WATERSHED.

THE BASIN OF WADY

This narrow basin seldom exceeds three miles in width, and it is confined to barely half a mile in its lower course. Its sources, rising on the Mediterranean waterparting, at a distance of about twenty miles from its junction with the Jordan, lie between Tell 'Asur (alt. 3,318 feet) and the well- known village of Beitin or Bethel (alt. 2,890 feet). The high- road from Bethel to the North, runs along the waterparting for about four miles ; and another road follows near it for the rest of the distance to Tell 'Asur, or about three miles.

The curvature of the northern boundary has been described in the account of the El 'Aujeh basin as far as 'Osh el Ghurab; where the interposition of the preceding secondary basin causes the present boundary to bend to the south-east, passing Kh. el Mefjir, and then east along the left bank of Wady Nuei'ameh.

The southern boundary, starting from Bethel, follows the road to Deir Diwan (alt. 2,570 feet), and southward to Mukhmas (Michmash) (alt. 1,990 feet), and Eas et Tawil (alt. 1,964 feet), whence it proceeds eastward along a moun- tain track to Umm et Talah, and Jebel Kuruntul (alt. 320 feet), on the north of which the track descends to the Ghor by a gap in the line of cliffs, and passing on the north of 'Ain es Sultan, follows the right bank of Wady Nuei'ameh to the Jordan which is here 1,230 feet below the sea level. This boundary has a general curvature parallel with that on the north of the basin, and deflecting in a similar manner from the Mediterranean waterparting, so as to interpose between it and the present basin, the north-western part of Wady el Kelt, which falls next into the Jordan on the south. Thus while the north-western part of this basin impinges on the south-eastern part of the el 'Aujeh basin belonging to the Mediterranean slope, the south-western part is divided by a portion of the Wady el Kelt basin from the famous plain of el Gib (Gibeon) or Neby Samwil, which occupies the north- east of the Nahr Eubin division of the Mediterranean water-