Page:An Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine.djvu/62

46 46 THE MEDITERRANEAN WATERSHED.

on the north. The eastern waterparting extends along the Jordan basin from Bireh to er Earn, Shafat, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Urtas, about three miles west of which, at a point south-west of el Khudr (alt. 2,832 feet), it joins the southern boundary. The southern waterparting dividing it from the larger basin of Nahr Sukereir passes from el Khudr along a highway towards Kefr Som and Beit Atab. South of Kefr Som, where the road bifurcates, the waterparting follows the south-western road towards Beit Netif (alt. 1,517 feet) along the northern edge of Wady el Werd. From Beit Netif, it passes to the north of Zakariya (alt. 940 feet) ; and with a bend to the north, proceeds westward to Mughullis, where it turns to the north again, and impinges on the Wady el Menakh to the south of Jilia. Hence it goes westward to el Kheimeh (alt. 300 feet), passing Beshshit (alt. 197 feet), and Yebnah, to the coast at the Minet or Harbour of Rubin.

TJie Watercourses of Nahr Rubin Basin.

The Nahr Rubin appears in the Palestine Exploration Survey, as a permanent stream at a further distance from the coast than any other river in Palestine, except the Kasimiyeh ; its perennial sources being traced up the Wady es Surar to the hills about Surah and Tibnah, made famous by Samson and the Patriarch Judah. Dr. Robinson, however, has recorded that in autumn the Nahr Rubin sometimes dries up.*

The head of the Nahr Rubin basin lies in a recess pro- jected northward between the basins of the Jordan and el 'Auja. It contains the historical plateau of el Jib or Gibeon, which extends southward to the heads of the descending ravines and gorges of Wady el Ghurab, Wady es Surar or Ismain, and the " deep and rugged " Wady el Werd. This southern edge of the plateau,f is denned by the road from Jerusalem, which runs along the ridge on the south of Lifta, to the Wady es Surar on the north of Kulonieh, and thence


 * Robinson's " Phys. Geog. H. Land," p. 177. t " Bib. Res.," iii., 159.