Page:Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine.djvu/71

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CHAPTER V.

GRANITIC REGION.

were now about to bid farewell for a time to the region of sandstone, and to enter one composed of much more ancient formations, consisting of grey or red granite, porphyry, and igneous rocks; giving rise to scenery of a bolder and more majestic character, and for the most part destitute of that grotesqueness which frequently characterises the region of sandstone. Still, remnants of this latter formation were seen from time to time to linger on the summits of the granitic cliffs, especially along the northern sides of the Wâdies Berk, Lebweh, and Beriáh. One of these (Fig. 4), of which I have taken a sketch—and almost the last of these outlying remnants—will give a general idea of the form of these interesting ruins of a once more extended formation. It will be gathered from a consideration of the form and position of this outlying mass of sandstone that the older rocks, upon which the sandstone rests, originally constituted a platform over which the strata were deposited in continuous sheets, and over a horizontal area vastly larger than that which they now occupy.

We camped for our midday meal near the head of the Wâdy Berk, at an elevation of about 2,700 feet above the sea, amidst a waste and wilderness of crumbling rocks, consisting chiefly of red porphyry, which some distance back had burst through and ultimately replaced grey granite of older date. Notwithstanding the elevation and the time of year, the temperature in the shade at 1.30 was 85° Fahr. The road (if such it could be called) consisted of a camel track amidst boulders and masses of shingle, often channelled by torrents. The scenery was wild and desolate in the extreme, but relieved here and there by little knots of