672 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



Earrat en-Nar,' northeast of Medina (26°, 30' N., 40° E.), M^hich was 

 still active in historic times. Beke himself in advanced age undertook 

 a trip to the Orient in order to solve this question. Prompted ^ by a 

 remark in the work of Irby and Mangles,^ who believed they had found 

 volcanic peaks northeast of Akaba, he turned his attention to the 

 mountain which towers above the northern point of the Gulf of 

 Akaba in the east and believed that he had found the true Sinai in 

 Jebel B^ghir, 1,600 meters (5,250 feet) high, supposedly also called 

 Jebel en-Ntir (''Mountain of Light"), five to six hours distant from 

 Akaba.* His companion, Milne, who afterwards became famous as 

 an investigator of earthquakes, ascended the mountain and Beke had 

 the disappointment to learn that it was not a volcano, but was of 

 granite formation. But instead of drawing from this the conclusion 

 that Sinai must be sought elsewhere, Beke held firmly to his localiza- 

 tion and gave up his volcano theory. "I was thoroughly mistaken 

 about the volcanic character of (the true) Sinai," he wrote to his 

 friend, E.. Burton,^ and in a similar way he expressed himself in his 

 interesting notes which, after his death, (July 31, 1874), were pub- 

 lished by his widow (unfortunately without a map).** But his other 

 reasons also for locahzing Sinai near Akaba were already shaken by 

 Burton.'' He agrees with Beke in opposing the traditional Sinai, but 

 thinks of the Desert of Pharan, north of the Sinaitic Peninsula and 

 refers to a paper by H. Gratz,^ who takes his stand for the Jebel 

 Arajif en-Naka (30° 20' N., 34° 20' E.). 



The now almost forgotten position of the Enghsh geographer and 

 Bibhcal investigator Beke on this question has been dwelt upon at 

 some length, in order to establish his priority in a problem upon 

 which, through recent investigations, unexpected light has been shed. 

 I pass over the recent Hterature on the Sinaitic Peninsula as such. It 

 is recorded in my reports on the geography of the ancient world. ^ 

 By the last one, wliich has been recently published,^" I was induced 

 to try a clear review of the whole story. Only the changmg views 



» See below, p. 676. 



* See letter in the Athenaeum, 1874, p. 25. 

 •Travels in Egypt (London, 1868). 



* The names given by Beke seem, as Burton (see below) already has pointed out, to rest on a misunder- 

 standing. According to A Musil, ArabiaPetraea, II, 1, and his "Karte von Arabia Petraea" (Vienna, 

 1907), the valley which from the northeast opens near Akaba is called Wadi el Jitm and the mouhtain 

 north of it Jebel Harum. Beke's Jebel Baghir (also siwllod Bargliir) seems to be in the Well of Shekh 

 Mhammad B&ker, which is situated upon a hill to which the Wadi Radda leads from the Wadi el Jitm. 

 Biideker, it is true, mentions even in the latest (7th) edition of his " Paliistina und Syrien" (1910), p. 

 197, the Jebel Barilr or Jebel en-N£lr, 4 to 5 hours from Akaba. This notice goes back to Beke, as may be 

 followed up through all the editions, and lacks, as there, a more accurate determination of the place. 



6 The Land of Midian, 1, 239. 



* Beke's Discoveries of Smai in Arabia and of Midian (London, 1878), pp. 392, 439. 

 ' Op. cit. and Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, 49 (1S79), pp. 42f, 48f. 



«Monatsschrift fiir Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums, 1S78, pp. 337-360. Illustration of 

 Jebel Arajif in Musil 's Arabia Petraea, II, 2, p. 168. 

 9 Geographisches Jahrbuch, 1896, 1899, 1905. 

 i» Ibid., 1911, pp. 352ft. 



