54 



THE FLORA OF ADEN. 

 By E. Blatter, s.j. 



(Continued from page 920 of Vol. X VTI of this Journal.) 



Having enumerated the plants of Aden, we now proceed to give 

 the physical aspects of the peninsula. 1 Aden, which is almost the 

 most southerly point on the south coast of the Province of Yemen in 

 Arabia Felix, is situat-d in latitude 12° 47' N., and longitude 45° 10 

 E. It is about fifteen miles in circumference, of an irregular oval 

 form, five miles in its greater, and three in its lesser diameter, connect- 

 ed with the continent by a low narrow neck of land 1,350 yams in 

 breadth, but which is in one place nearly covered by the sea at high 

 spring tides. The peninsula consists of a large crater, formed by lofty 

 and precipitous hills, the highest peak of which rises as high as 1,775 

 feet. On the exterior side the hills slope towards the sea, throwing 

 out numerous spurs, which form a series of valleys, radiating from a 

 common centre. Some of the spurs, falling almost abruptly into the 

 sea, are nearly inaccessible. On the eastern face, opposite the fortified 

 island of Seerah, there exists a gap. The appearance of the island 

 would induce the belief, that it had at one time completed the circle, 

 but that, having been separated by some convulsion of nature, it had 

 been carried out and deposited in the sea, a few hundred yards in 

 advance of the gap caused by its removal. The inlet thus formed is 

 known by the name of Front or East Bay. 



There is also a cleft from north to south, and the rents thus produced 

 are called the Northern and Southern Pusses ; the former, better 

 known as the Main Pass, is the only entrance from the harbour into 

 the town, which is situated within the crater. 



Between the northern shore of the peninsula and the south coast of 

 the continent stretches the principal harbour or Back Bay with a 

 width of about three miles at the entrance. As to its geological aspect, 

 Aden is entirely of volcanic rock. The crater, as it now stands, has a 

 diameter of 1^ to nearly 2 miles, the height of the walls, except where 

 broken through at Front Bay, varying from a few hundred to nearly 

 1,800 feet. The crater, however, as well as the whota volcanic mass 



x Cf. R. L. Playfair, A History of Arabia Felix or Yemen (Select, from the Rec. of the 

 Bombay Government, 1859) and P. M. Hunter, An Account of the British Settlement of 

 Aden in Arabia, 1877. 



