Page:An Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine.djvu/120

104 104 THE DEAD SEA WATERSHED.

(4.) Wady es Sammarah rises on the north of the Tubk es Sammarah and descends between it and Eas Muakit through a ravine on the south of Eas Feshkah. Near this wady and mountain is Kh. es Sumrah in the Plain of el Bukei'a. These with Wady 'Amriyeh and the wady and ruin of Kumrcm, in the same neighbourhood may also be reminiscences of Gomorrah. See Conder's " Tent Work," i, 298.

Wady en Nar Basin,

The northern boundary of this basin has been described in connection with Wady el Kueiserah from the north and east of Jerusalem to the summit of el Muntar. From that mountain to the north of its outfall at the Dead Sea, the boundary runs south-eastward to Khurbet Mird and skirting the southern end of el Bukei'a, ascends Tubk Sammarah, and descends to the southernmost foot of that mountain and to the Dead Sea.

The western boundary of the basin of Wady en Nar, begins on the Jerusalem road, about a mile on the south of Shafat, and takes a south-westerly direction to the Jaffa road, where the altitude is 2,669 feet, about a mile from the north- west corner of Jerusalem. Thence it pursues a south-westerly course to the Bethlehem road, having on the west the upper channels of the Wady el Werd in the Nahr Eubin basin. So far this basin impinges on the Mediterranean water- parting, but about half a mile north of the Kasr esh Sheikh, its western boundary, continuing on a south-easterly course, becomes divided from the Mediterranean basins by the Jordan basin of Wady ed Derajeh, which includes Bethlehem, and empties itself into the Dead Sea, seven miles south of the mouth of Wady en Nar, the interval being occupied by secondary basins. From the point of the divergence of this boundary from the Bethlehem road, it follows another ancient and straight road south-eastward to Kh. el Makhrum, where it is diverted to the south for a mile along the mountain of Umm et Tala (alt. 2,200 feet). Here the southern boundary may be said to begin. It takes up a south-easterly course