Page:An Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine.djvu/131

115 WADY EL 'AREIJEH. 115

runs on through three miles of open ground to the terminal gorge of Wady el Kelb and el 'Areijeh, all the way skirting the northern edge of the basin.

The Gorge of the Jihar and Ghar, with the three great branching gorges that fall into it from the west, belongs to a distinct plateau, bounded by the waterpartings on each side, also by the interior range of Kanan ez Zaferan, which divides this plateau from the more elevated plateau of Wady el 'Arrub ; and by another long interior range which proceeds from the waterparting at Beni N'aim and stretches across the basin eastward up to the left bank and lower end of the gorge of el Ghar, where it tails off in a direction parallel with the waterparting at Sahlet el Mateirdeh. This latter range descends from the altitude of 3,120 feet at Beni N'aim to 1,696 feet at Dahret el Meshrefeh. As the cross range on the upper side of the plateau maintains a height of not less than 3,000 feet, there is a cue to the depression of the lower plateau in the altitude at Dahret el Meshrefeh, which is sup- ported by another on the same range near to it, at the well of that name. An altitude at the confluence of Wady Abu el Hamam with Wady el Ghar, or at the confluence of Wady el Jeradat with Wady el Jihar, would afford better indications. But unfortunately for geographers, it has not yet become the practice of scientific surveyors to apply their observations for altitude to the junctions of rivers and watercourses, as well as to the summits of hills and mountains ; although of the two the hydrographic altitudes are of the more importance.

Between the cross range which forms the southern boundary of the Plateau of Jihar and Ghar, and the southern waterparting of the basin, there is a wady which rises on the north-east of Beni N'aim as Wady Umm el 'Ausej and after receiving Wady es Suweidiyeh, becomes Wady es Sukiyeh, and falls into Wady el Ghar, before it drops down into the rocky gorge of Wady el Kelb. This wady together with the great terminal gorge, may be said to form the south-eastern division of the basin, or one of its three divisions which the present exposition of the new survey has brought to light.