150 
These three ranges, which but for the gaps above mentioned 
would be one, differ in height. The Nusairy range, and the 
mountains of Palestine are about of equal height and general 
physiognomy, but Lebanon towers to triple their height, and in the 
boldness of its scenery and the grandeur of its peaks rivals the greater 
mountain chains of the earth. 
Eastward of the Nusairy range is a broad plain, watered by the’ 
Orontes, and flanked on its eastern border by a low range of hills 
which separates it from the desert. 
At Hems, (ancient Emesa) the northern gaps of the seacoast 
chain (¢. ¢., between the Nusairy Mountains and Lebanon) joins the 
plain of Ccoele-Syria at a right angle, and sweeps eastward into the 
desert, between the range of hills above alluded to and Anti- 
Lebanon. 
South of Hems, at Kamoa el Hurmul, where there is a famous 
Assyrian monument, begins the valley of the Bukaa or Ceele-Syria. 
_ This bed of an ancient lake is about 120 miles in length, and 
terminates near Hasbeiya in a vast dyke, through which the Litany 
has broken on its headlong way to the sea. East of this plain, 
which at its widest part may be 12 miles broad, is the range of Anti- 
Lebanon, terminating in Jebel esh Sheikh, as the Arabs reverently 
call the silver crown of Hermon. Anti-Lebanon is lower than 
Lebanon, but Hermon over tops the highest peaks of the sea-coast 
range, being over 11,000 feet in height. 
From the dyke which terminates the valley of Coele-Syria to the 
southward, a space of 15 miles is occupied by the region of Merj 
Ayun, a fertile plain, connecting the coast with the region of the 
Huleh. This cross valley has relations with the southern extremities 
of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, similar to those of the valley which 
divides them from the Nusairy Mountains and their parallel range 
in the north. Eastward it winds around the foot of Hermon, and 
forms the route of access to the plain of Damascus and the Hauran, 
and southward it merges into the marshes of the Huleh, the proper 
commencement of the Jordan valley. This valley, gradually in- 
creasing in depth, becomes a canyon, terminating in the cliffs of 
Usdum, south of the Dead Sea. At its lowest part this valley is 
1,300 feet below the Mediterranean. Eastward of the Jordan valley 
are the ranges of Bashan, Gilead, and Moab, abutting upon the 
northern spur of the Sinaitic range. Eastward of this range stretches 
away the great Syrian desert. 
Syria therefore consists of two great mountain chains, stretching 
from north to south, divided by a valley of varying breadth and 
depth. The western range is flanked by the sea-coast plain, and 
the eastern by the table land known as the Syrian desert. Two 
cross valleys equidistant from the extremities of the chains, and 
from each other, subdivide each of these chains into three of equal 
“length, of which in either case the central is far the grandest and 
most imposing. These valleys likewise form a highway of com- 
munication between the coast and the interior. 
The meteorology of Syria results from its physiography and is 
briefly as follows: At Beirut, midway between the northern and 
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