322 Dr Buist on the General Vibration^ or 



and Gumuch ; nevertheless, if the best qualities of that from 

 the island of Nicaria are found in abundance, and that only 

 sent into market, it will prove at least equal, if not superior 

 to that of Naxos. — Vide American Journal of Science and 

 Arts, vol. X., No. 30, 2d Series, p. 368, for further details. 



On the General Vibration or Descent and Upheaval rohich 

 seems, at a recent Geological period^ to have occurred all over 

 the Northern Hemisphere. By Dr BuiST of Bombay. 

 Communicated by the Author. 



The whole of the desert betwixt Cairo and Suez bears the 

 clearest evidence of having, at no distant period, been the 

 bottom of the sea. 



After a fall of rain an efflorescence of salt still appears on 

 its surface. The gravel consists of rolled pebbles, mostly 

 portions of the adjoining rocks. It is everywhere mixed with 

 fragments of sea-shells. The desert, at the centre station, 

 reaches an elevation of 800 feet, and shells are said to be 

 found at the elevation of 2000, both on the African and 

 Arabian side.* This most probably has been elevated at a 

 remote period in comparison with the date of the upheavals 

 along the shores of the Red and other seas about to be 

 mentioned. 



2. All around Suez there is a vast expanse of level plain, 

 extending from two to twenty miles inward, diversified here 

 and there with hillocks of drifted sand, obviously the eifect 

 of the wind. A section of the material of which the plain is 

 composed is exhibited along the sea-shore. It is about eight 

 feet above high-water mark, and consists entirely of sand, 

 gravel, shells, perfectly fresh, and apparently of the same 

 varieties as those on the beach. This upheaval extends, with 

 little or no interruption, all the way to Aden, unless where the 

 cliffs advance boldly on the sea. A similar beach, at a similar 

 elevation, is formed all around the peninsula of Aden, and, 

 though I have had no means of personally determining the 

 fact, I have no doubt it will be found all along the Arabian 



* Dr Wilson's Lands of the Bible, — Dr HofFmeister's Travels. 



