Page:Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine.djvu/67

Rh which several miles to the north of our position stretched with a bold, nearly unbroken, front, from Jebel Wutáh on the west to Jebel Emreikeh on the east. Below us, towards the east, lay the deep depression of the Wâdy Suwig, and its branch the Wâdy Nasb. Beyond rose the dark terraces and scarped cliffs of the desert sandstone, sloping at a gentle angle northwards towards the base of the Tîh escarpment, and through a gap we could distinguish in the blue distance the rugged outlines of Serbal. The heat was intense, as there was no shade, and the flies, as usual on such occasions, proved excessively noxious. Our tent was at an elevation of about 1,700 feet above the sea, but the thermometer registered 90° Fahr. in the shade, and this in the latter part of November! That evening we pitched in the Wâdy Nasb, one of the few spots where wells permanently supplied with water are to be found, and therefore a favourite camping ground. Our thirsty camels, after getting rid of their loads, proceeded up the valley about three miles to the well. Major Kitchener, my son, and I also followed, weary as we were, in hopes of finding the fossiliferous limestone. The limestone we found, but not the fossils on this occasion; and we were glad to sit down on the well side and get a draught of the cool waters. The presence of water here is doubtless due to the fissure, or fault, which traverses this valley, and owing to which the sandstone is elevated to a higher level on the east side than on the west.

The next morning, accompanied by my son, I climbed the cliffs above our camp, and we were rewarded by the discovery of a good number of fossils—both of shells, corals, and echinoderms, in a rather imperfect condition, but which it is believed will serve to determine beyond question the geological age of this great formation—the “Desert Sandstone.”

Later in the day we started along the Wâdy Suwig, which stretches in an easterly direction, skirting the granitic and sandstone districts, and leading us in the direction of Mount Sinai. The scenery was interesting,