Page:Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine.djvu/135

Rh above the sea, and only connected by a slight saddle with the heights which form the boundary of the Great Valley on the eastern side. This ridge is formed of red and grey granite, with dykes of porphyry, and from its summit Major Kitchener made a successful series of triangulations. Accompanied by Mr. Armstrong I examined an adjoining ridge of less elevation, at some distance to the westward of Samrat Fiddân, and was surprised to find its summit composed of gravel and boulders of granite, basalt, and porphyry, piled up in the manner of a moraine, or of a vast shingle beach. As the idea of ice action is here out of the question, I was obliged to conclude that we had before us an old littoral beach, belonging to the period when the waters of the Salt Sea washed the base of the adjoining ridge, and that the ridge itself is an old sea margin. From its base the plain stretches across westward to the escarpment of the Tîh at a distance of six or seven miles, and the Great Fault of the Wâdy el Arabah ranges along the western margin of the ridge, by which the limestone forming the floor of the valley underneath the lacustrine deposit is "brought down" against the granite. The plain is traversed by the Wâdy el Jeib and its tributaries, along the banks of which occur terraces of breccia or conglomerate, sometimes calcareous, and formed of pebbles of porphyry, limestone, &c., sometimes resting on sand or silt. These beds have been recognised by M. L. Lartet as ancient deposits of the Dead Sea, of a period when the hydrographical conditions were very different from those of the present time.

On Friday, 14th December, we pitched our tents near the entrance to the Wâdy Suweireh, north of the Samrat ridge; and as Major Kitchener wished for time to survey the western margin of the limestone plateau beyond the Jeib, it was arranged to remain here two nights. We were now within a day's march of the edge of The Ghôr, and it was deemed a good opportunity to despatch a messenger to Jerusalem for horses and mules for our party, to meet us on our arrival at Es Safieh, in order to proceed up to the Holy City by the western shore of the Salt Sea and Ain Jidi, according to the instructions of the Committee. There was only one Bedawin amongst our party who knew the road, and being aware of this