1888. | NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 167% 
feet to several miles as far as the pass of Nahr-el-Kelb, which 
overhangs the sea about five miles north of Beirit. From this 
point to Kolmoon, the mountains come down to the sea, except 
at a few points where they recede to form small plains, usually 
the sites of villages. From Tripoli northward the plain gradu- 
ally widens, until at *Akkar its greatest width is about five miles. 
Thence it formsa narrower strip along the Nuasairy coast to Lat- 
takia, from which it again broadens and extends to the foot of 
Cassius, where it ends in the bold spur of this mountain which 
projects into the sea. 
The most noteworthy geological feature of this region is the 
blown sand which piles up on the southern aspect of all the 
headlands, and often overwhelms the fields and orchards, and 
sometimes the villages and ruins. 
A change which has taken place in the drift of these sands 
in the course of twenty years, illustrates the influence of man 
over geological changes. ‘The sand which is thrown up by the 
sea on the shore, is that which is brought by the prevailing cur- 
rents from the Lybian coast. Before the Canal of Suez was con- 
structed, this sand had uninterrupted course. Since the canal 
was made, however, and its approaches have been regularly 
dredged, the sand is no longer brought in considerable quantities, 
and the increase of the dunes is very greatly lessened. At 
Beirtit, eighty years since, the inhabitants and proprietors of a 
quarter of the suburbs which had been overwhelmed peti- 
tioned the government to resume possession of the sandy 
tract, that they might be relieved from the taxes. This was 
done. Since the construction of the canal, the sand instead of 
overwhelming new tracts, has partially uncovered those already 
covered, and the proprietors vainly sought from the government 
to re-establish their property rights over what had now become 
valuable building sites. 
An archeological discovery of interest was made during the 
excavations for the foundations of the boys’ school in Sidon a 
few years since. At a depth of several feet a Roman foundation 
was met with. Beneath this was a layer of blown sand, and 
beneath this a layer of ashes, charred bones, flint knives, and a 
pottery whistle which could be made to sound. 
The soft sandstone of the promontories of Jaffa, Tyre, Sidon, 
Beirtit, Tripoli, has doubtless been formed from ancient dunes. 
I have found the fossil leg-bone of a bovine quadruped, and the 
fossil body of a whale’s vertebra in this sandstone. 
An hour north of Beirtit, at the top of the pass over the pro- 
montory of Nahr-el-Kelb, is a mass of bone breccia, made up of 
the bones of extinct animals, mixed with flint chips. No human 
bones were discovered among them. In a large cavern near the 
