Page:Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine.djvu/45

Rh exactly north and south, so that when the shadow of the sun is coincident therewith it is noonday.

In this temple (as I was informed by one of the guides) Professor Smyth spent much of his time when engaged in making the measurements for his well-known work.

When passing through Alexandria we had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of that indefatigable traveller and excellent geologist, Dr. Schweinfurth, to whom Mr. Hart had a letter of introduction. Having arrived at Cairo just after ourselves, he kindly offered to accompany us on a visit to the Mokattam Hills, at the base of which the city is built, and from which the stone for the construction of the houses and public buildings has been chiefly obtained.

This range of hills, though of no great elevation (600 to 700 feet), forms a fine background to the city, as well as to the Valley of the Nile, owing to the abrupt and scarped face it presents towards the north and west. It is composed of beds of the nummulite limestone, remarkably fossiliferous, both nummulites, shells, echini, and even fossil crabs being abundant. The quarries are of great extent, and the stone beautifully white, or slightly yellow, and capable of being chiselled into fine mouldings and architectural forms. From the summit of the ridge, which had been the sanitary camp of the British troops during the outbreak of cholera, we enjoyed an extensive view, and one full of variety and interest. To the right, at our feet, lay the capital of Egypt, with its streets, palaces, mosques, and churches, interspersed with gardens and groves of trees; and in the foreground, standing on a projecting platform, the citadel and the mosque of Mehemet Ali, with its exquisitely graceful minarets. To the left, and washing the eastern base of the hills, stretched the green and fruitful plain of the Nile; the great river itself carrying its channel from side to side, and crossed opposite the city by the bridge we had passed over the previous day. Looking across the valley, the horizon towards the west is bounded by the yellow ridge of the desert sands, in front of which, as if to mark the boundary between the region of verdure and that of drear sterility, are planted the Pyramids, in grand procession, headed by the greatest and oldest; those