Page:An Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine.djvu/176

160 160 THE PLAINS OF THE JORDAN.

basin, which drains the hills that form the western side of the gorge. But the principal affluents of the Wady Maleh are derived from the range that bounds the basin on the south-west, and constitutes its main slope or watershed. One of these affluents runs for seven miles northward, along the eastern side of the basin to join the Jordan, which descends on the eastern side of the same range, in a direction exactly opposite.

This south-western range seems to be the chief factor in the group of hills that forms the western side of the Sama- ritan Gorge. It was observed, heretofore, that the range forming the axis of the hills on the western side of the Galilean Gorge of the Jordan, is in continuity with the mountain range that divides Upper and Lower Galilee, and extends to the Plain of Acre. In like manner the south- western range of the Maleh basin, forming the main element of the hills on the west of the Samuritan Gorge, exhibits a remarkable alignment with Mount Carmel, and its continuation along the south-west of the Plain of Esdraelon. This range is also the first of a series of ranges parallel to it, which will be noticed hereafter.

The foot of the hills on the west of the gorge, often descends to the Ghor in precipitous rocks, and advances occasionally to the Zor, the track being carried sometimes along the very foot of the hills or over the slope of the projected spur, or even down into indents of the Zor. For the Zor itself very much indents the Ghor, penetrating it along the course of the wadys, which descend in ravines across the Ghor from the hill-side. The Zor also varies in width on the western side (of which alone the survey takes cognizance), independ- ently of the indents before-mentioned. It exceeds a mile at Wady Marma Fiad on the north, and also at Wady Abu Sidreh on the south, where it reaches up to the hills ; and it is quite half a-mile broad for nearly two miles, on the south of Wady Umm ed Deraj ez Zakkum. Ten fords across the Jordan, are noted and named in the new Survey within this narrow tract.