Page:Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine.djvu/65

Rh Dates are gathered at the end of October in these parts and in Lower Egypt; at Alexandria they are later.

Later in the day we passed through a tract in which there were excellent illustrations of the formation of terraces by torrent-action. The strata consisted of soft marly limestones and shales, and when horizontal were scooped out into terraces, with intermediate ravines; when highly inclined, into a succession of escarpments and slopes. It was a waste wilderness of crumbling strata; but full of interest to the geologist. The terraces of the Wâdy Hamr, on our next day's march, were also remarkable, and reminded me of the pictures I had seen of those in the Colorado region of America.