Page:Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine.djvu/168

132 many places this marl, the ancient floor of the Dead Sea, is solidified into calcareous crusts and blocks of various degrees of consistency; and frequently crystals of selenite, in stellate patches, from 1 to 3 inches across, of a pale brown colour, lie on the surface. The central ridge is about 200 yards from the western edge of Jebel Usduni, and forms its axis, lying north and south magnetic. An easier descent would bring one down to an inner wady, sloping north and south from a central height of about 400 feet above the Dead Sea, or 200 below the summit. Thus this mountain of salt, or rather of marl with a foundation of salt, is completely isolated. Its length is about six miles. It would be easy to ascend Jebel Usdum from either end, or from the inner wâdy between it and the limestone declivities of Judæa about a mile beyond. The summit corresponds accurately with the height of the conspicuous marls all round the southern base of the Dead Sea. I estimated their levels in Wâdy Arabah, and in two or three places in the ravines, and on the cliff sides to the east and south-east of our encampment in The Ghor near Es Safieh, and their upper limit always lay somewhere been 600 and 650 feet.

"From the plateau on the summit of Jebel Usdum there descends a gully to the north, which one would imagine it would take a wider watershed to form. Down this we descended, Laurence having joined me on the top, by a cutting through deep smoothly-sliced walls of marl, white and unspeakably dusty. Often these are finely and beautifully laminated with great regularity, showing the ancient planes of deposition. No trace of organic matter could be detected in them. Nevertheless, at the very summit almost, were the burrows of a small rodent (I believe the porcupine mouse Acomys dimidiatus, Gray); and a solitary sparrow-hawk, perched on the highest point, was hardly induced to make room for me. A couple of tamarisk bushes reminded me of botany, and about six other species of plants, all of the Desert type, were noted in the upper hundred feet. As we descended straggler after straggler appeared in the dry water-course; and by the time we reached the wide Muhauwat Wâdy at the north-west corner of Jebel Usdum, some forty thirsty feverish grey weeds had put in their appearance. Here our successful little detour was somewhat marred by finding we had caused our comrades alarm, and our ever-watchful guardian had been induced to send Bedawins to scour the country for us. We availed ourselves of the delay by a swim, or rather wade, in the Dead Sea, an experience which I shall ever recall with a pious horror of smarting eyes and inflamed scratches."