Page:An Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine.djvu/94

78 78 THE JORDAN WATERSHED.

tion of the basin of Wady Far'ah and the basin of Wady Humr, which is the next tributary to the Jordan on the south, and the recipient of the better known Wady Fusail. The altitude of the Plain of Salim is 1,500 feet at its western end, and only 1,800 feet at the edge of the descent into Wady Kerad, which is one of the heads of Wady el Humr. But the mountains on the north and south of this end of the plain, rise to 2,510 feet and 2,547 feet respectively. The plain of Askar thus forms the junction of two broad valleys or plains at right angles to each other, and of an equal length of six miles, with an average breadth throughout that seldom exceeds a mile except at the southern and eastern extremities. The Askar plain is the collecting ground of the drainage of this part of the basin before it is carried into the chasm of Wady Beidan to join the lower region in the main valley on the north.

(2.) The northern part of the head of the Far'ah Basin is surrounded by a semicircle of hills with a oUameter of seven or eight miles. The villages of Asiret el Hatab, Yasid, Tubas, and Tammun, indicate the course of the circular margin, from which the wadys converge towards two centres. One of them, taking four-fifths of this track, is about half a mile below 'Ain and Tell el Far'aji ; and the other is at the lower end of Wady Beidan. The inequality of these areas is com- pensated by the junction with the smaller centre of the out- fall of the southern division.

From these central junctions, two streams run, one south- ward, and the other eastward ; and they meet after a course of a mile and a half each. Here the Wady Far'ah begins its south-eastern course to the Ghor, with the summits on each side about four or five miles apart. After a descent of three miles and a half, the valley is found by the observations 'of the survey to be on a level with the sea. At Yasid on the western edge of the basin, and eight miles and a half distant, the altitude is 2,240 feet. At the junction of Wady Far'ah with the Jordan, the depth is 1,160 feet below the sea level, the direct distance from the sea level point being about