Page:An Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine.djvu/204

188 188 THE MOUNTAINS OF UPPER GALILEE.

It is yet too soon to dismiss the features connected with the Hindaj. It is the only part of the eastern slope of Upper Galilee that comes in contact with the Mediterranean water- parting, where the latter throws off its channels cfrrectlyto the westward. On the south of the Hindaj, the plateau of Safed also abuts on the Mediterranean slope, but that plateau is not on the eastern, but on the southern slope of Upper Galilee. The plateau of the' Selukieh which follows that of the Hindaj on the north, belongs to the northern slope.

Another remark on the Hindaj may be made. North of the Hinplaj, the waterparting of the Mediterranean makes a succession of steps to the eastward, so as to become east of the Litany and the Lebanon. The western limit of the Hindaj is the commencement of the meridional direction, along which the Mediterraneo-Jordan waterparting zigzags for the rest of the Survey. Its most westerly point near Sasa is the first of a series of projections to the west, alternating with recesses to tjie east, which mark the progress of the great parting southward. The origin of this configuration will probably engage the attention of future observers.

The .direct orographic continuation of the main water- parting becomes disconnected from its hydrographic accom- paniment, o the north of the Hindaj, and pursues a line on the west, instead of on the east of the Selukieh ; and reaches the Kasimtyeh in a bend of the river northward, below the confluence of tjie .Selukieh, and the K'ak'eiyeh Bridge. It is a line witji successive oscillations, that point to a continuous series of .small elevated plateaus alternating from one basin to another, and which will be noticed hereafter.

The parallelism in the orography of Upper Galilee, which has been already remarked, extends beyond the limits of the eastern slope and its ranges, and includes a part of the western slope. But as the extraneous parallel has a direction in common with tjiose already noticed, and has a dividing line also in common with the Safed, Hindaj, and Selukieh series, it seems desirable to deal with it at once, and to make it the