John Hogg, Esq., on the Geology of Mount Sinai, ^c, 255 



*' From the nature of the materials composing its channel, at and 

 near the mouth of the river, its direction is subject to many 

 changes. By one of these, two farms are at present disjoined from 

 the parish (St Cyrus), of which they originally formed, and still, 

 quoad civilia, form a part ; and, in the memory of not very old 

 persons, the river poured its waters into the sea at a point about two 

 miles eastward of its present mouth." 



These facts seem to justify the conclusion that the North Esk had, 

 after the recession of the sea, occupied a much higher level than its 

 present humble representative, which, in the draught of a good seed 

 time, can scarce allow a poor salmon, troubled with sea-lice, to run 

 beneath the magnificent bridge which spans its banks. 



The finding of the chain-plate bolts and harpoon is a fact which 

 I leave to the antiquarian's investigation ; that they indicate another 

 rising of the level of the German Ocean rests entirely on the amount 

 of imagination possessed by the party considering the question. 



On the Geography and Geology of the Peninsula of Mount 

 Sinai and the adjacent Countries. By John Hogg, M.A., 

 F.R.S., F.L.S. ; Honorary Secretary of the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society, &c. Communicated by the Author. 



(Concluded from page 62.) 



And sixthly, in conclusion, I will add some general obser- 

 vations on the geological formations, the minerals and ores, 

 mineral springs and their temperatures, the altitudes of some 

 of the higher mountains, table-lands, and plains, and other 

 natural features of the Sinaic Peninsula. 



The great desert of El Tyh is vast, desolate, arid, and 

 flat in its general aspect ; but it consists in reality of several 

 table-lands or plateaux of different elevations, and is often 

 covered, as Captain Newbold* describes, " with drifted sands, 

 beds, and mounds of gravel, of quartz, flint, calcareous and 

 jaspideous pebbles, resting on a (secondary) limestone." This 

 cretaceous limestone is mostly "of a chalky texture and colour. 



* See " Visit to Mount Sinai," in the " Madras Journal," p. 47, vol. 14. 

 Madras, 1847. As the author of that paper is the only English geologist who 

 has personally visited, and then written on, this country, and as his essay is 

 difficult to be met with in England, being recently published in India, I have 

 given in the following pages several extracts from it, wherein I have at the 

 same time made some slight corrections. 



