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“this formation. The turquoises of the Wady Maghera occur 
“in two beds, the rock being a soft coarse-grained quartzose 
“sandstone of a light yellow colour. The best stones are 
“found in the solid sandstone a short distance from the joints 
‘“‘ where they usually occur in the centre of small red marly and 
“ochreous nodules. The Arabs were working the turquoise 
“mines of Sardbit el Khadim quite lately, and, according to Mr 
“ Holland, have destroyed by blasting many of the hieroglyphic 
‘inscriptions sculptured upon the blocks of sandstone.” 
M. Lartet has classed this formation as cretaceous, but sub- 
sequently to his investigation there has been found in Nasb 
Valley undoubted evidence in the lower beds (called by Hull 
desert sandstone) of carboniferous fauna. The few fossils found 
by Bauerman were so dubious, one authority referring them to 
the carboniferous whilst another said they belonged to the new 
red, but Captain Wilson procured a block of limestone from 
the valley section from which one fossil Orthis Michelini was 
found well known in the carboniferous limestone. This was 
confirmed by Mr Davidson. Mr Hull also confirms its carbon- 
iferous character at this horizon. The base of the Nubian 
sandstone is not visible in the eastern cliffs of the Dead Sea, 
nor I believe where it is associated with limestone as in the 
Lebanon ranges. Mr Hudleston remarks: “no named fossils 
“have ever as far as I know been found in the Nubian sand- 
“stone of Eastern Palestine, though certain vegetable impress- 
“ions have been observed. But there is a note in M. Lartet’s 
“earlier work which, seeing what has been found in Wady 
“‘Nasb, becomes of considerable interest. He noticed traces of 
“corals (polypiers) in the sandstone near the junction of 
“the Wady Haimen with the Wady Akaban, similar to some 
“collected from Sinai and from the vicinity of Nasb.” 
Mr Hudleston in his “Further Notes on the Geology of 
Palestine,” admits the accuracy of Hull’s Desert Sandstone 
with its associated limestone, found by that Geologist, not only 
at Wady Nasb but also on the banks of the Hessi, south of 
Kerak, as being carboniferous. He says Hull’s party have traced 
