Geology of Mount Sinai and adjacent Countries. 259 



remains of moiiocotyledonous plants ; and other specimens, 

 as compact chalk, from Gebel-el-Tyh, with flints and fossils. 

 But in part of the mountains about Wadi Naszb some of the 

 hills " are surmounted by beds of ancient transition limestone. 

 The most remarkable of these is of a fine lilac colour, very 

 compact, of great hardness, and a crystalline texture.^""* 



Many of " the gravel beds, and those resulting from the 

 decay of the granite and hypogene rocks (already mentioned), 

 are often cemented and consolidated by the water of springs 

 charged with carbonate of lime., assisted by the oxidation of a 

 portion of the iron contained in the rock itself. "t They thus 

 frequently present a sort of breccia, pudding-stone, or conglo- 

 merate of great compactness and beauty. 



In some places *' large dykes of greenstone can be traced 

 for miles over the granitic rocks;" and, in others, they " rarely 

 overlap the granite and hypogene schist which they penetrate, 

 but seem to have existed in a solidified state in them at the 

 time they were broken up. Faults of considerable extent 

 may be thus traced even in the granite itself." And Dr Ro- 

 binson says of these dykes, sometimes perpendicular veins of 

 griinstein (greenstone) or porphyry were visible in Wadi 

 Berah, projecting above the granite, and running through the 

 rocks in a straight line over mountains and valleys for miles, 

 and presenting the appearance of low walls. Burckhardt like- 

 wise noticed the same in "W. Genne, near that Wadi, and in 

 Wadi-el-Sal. 



" The strike of the hypogene strata is nearly parallel with the 

 northerly direction of the peninsula. The dip is nearly vertical, and 

 towards the east, and the general direction (of the strata or rather 

 lamince) of these hypogene schists, forming the lower ranges around 

 (the present) Mount Sinai, is nearly north and south, but great dis- 

 order is visible both in the dip and stratification. The schists are 

 often seen on their edges." J 



Next, as to the ores, minerals, and mineralogical characters 

 of the principal rocks. 



Captain Newbold writes (p. 51) ; — " The great scantiness 



* Physical Geography of the Holy Land, by J. Kitto, D.D.^ p. 81. London^ 

 1848. 



t Newbold, in Madras Journal, vol. xiv., p. 56. 

 I Ibid., p. 60 and p. 69. 



r2 



