Page:An Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine.djvu/219

203 THE NAZARETH RANGE. 203

limits, with regard to its bases, and also to its line of cul- mination, it will be reduced to an intelligible form.

The northern base is, as a matter of course, identical with the southern base of the preceding range, from its eastern end on the Jordan, to its western end at the passage of Wady Kummaneh from the Plain of Toran into the Plain of Buttauf. From that point the more westerly extension of the Nazareth Hills, requires the base line to be continuous along the same channel to Wady el Khalladiyeh and Wady el Melek, up to the junction of the latter with the Mu- kutt'a.

The southern base proceeds on the east from the Jordan, up Wady el Bireh and Wady esh Sherrar, to the south- western foot of Mount Tabor or Jebel et Tur, where it ap- proaches the waterparting of the Mukutt'a ; and the Wady then receives affluents from Iksal on the north-west, and from Jebel Duhy on the south. From this confluence the base is followed across the waterparting to the affluent of the Mukutt'a which descends by Bir el Hufiyin and Wady el Muweily to the Nahr el Mukutt'a, which it follows to its confluence with Wady el Melek, or so far as the hills extend into the Plain of Acre.

The main summits of the hills within these limits, may be traced from the Plain of Acre, by a spur which rises from the plain near el Harbaj, and which forms a portion of the waterparting between the tributaries of the Mukutt'a and those of its affluent, the Wady el Melek. This waterparting, which will be more fully elucidated hereafter, leads eastward to a summit (alt. 1,548 feet), about a mile on the west of Nazareth, and this is the first observation for altitude so far along the waterparting. Observations on either side seem to imply that on the west of Nazareth it does not descend below 700 feet, until its final decline into the Plain of Acre. The lowest depression, which forms a notable point in the further description of the range, will probably be found between the southern end of Wady el Khalladiyeh, and Zebdah (alt. 350 feet), in the Plain of Esdraelon, on the west of Semunieh.