

TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 55 
Few minerals and ores occur in the Sinaic peninsula; of these iron and copper are 
the most abundant ; indeed, in hieroglyphics, Professor Lepsius remarks, that the whole 
country was called Mafkat, 4. e. “ the copper land.’’ Neither lead nor silver has been 
detected, but near Mersa Dahab, which means the ‘ gold port,’ some assert that gold 
dust is present, for the teeth of the Ibex are sometimes seen surrounded with it. This 
probably may be only auriferous pyvites. Hematite, antimony, rock-crystal, cinna- 
bar, nitre, rock-salt, a yellow clay named tafal, crystallized sulphate of lime, sulphur, 
gypsum, pebbles of agate and jasper, occur. Thermal springs rise at Gebel Hamam 
and in El] Wadi near Tur; the former having a temperature of 55° R., and the latter 
91° Fahr. The porphyries and granites of the high Sinaic group vary extremely in 
colours, and some are of great beauty ; the latter resembling those near Assouan. 
According to Russegger, the highest peaks of that group, in fact of the entire 
peninsula, rise to 9300 English feet above the sea. A peculiarity in the lower mountain 
ranges is this :—generally an ascending valley (Wadi) leads up to the summit, which 
constitutes a plain, and then another Wadi slopes down to the level of the neigh- 
bouring district. Such is even the present general form of the long Wadi el Araba. 
The minerals and ores in Eastern Egypt are, the author believes, only iron, copper, 
and much naphtha or petroleum found at Gebel el Zeit, ‘Mount of Oil;’ and in that 
part of Arabia which comes within this notice, little ornothing is known of its mineral 
products. The soil however in several localities is much more fertile, and more 
abounding in water, than that either in Eastern Egypt or in the Sinaic peninsula. 
Mr. J. Hogg illustrated his observations with some beautiful lithographed views of 
Suez, of the mountains in the peninsula, of the head of the Gulf of Akaba, and the 
site of Petra, by Mr. David Roberts and the late Lieut. Wellsted. 
On the Relations between the New Red Sandstone, the Coal-measures, and the 
Silurian Rocks of the South Staffordshire Coal-field. By J. Beutz Juxzs, 
M.A., F.G.S. 
The author commenced by remarks on the interesting question of what rocks lay 
below the new red sandstone of the Midland Counties, and after giving a concise sketch 
of the structure of that district, directed attention to the particular instance of the 
South Staffordshire coal-field. He stated that a point of great practical importance was 
the nature of the boundary faults of the midland coal-fields, whether they were true 
faults, or only old cliffs of coal-measures with the new red sandstone abutting against 
them. Having been engaged in the government geological survey of South Stafford- 
shire, he wished to point out what results had been already arrived at. He showed 
that each of the three formations entering into the structure of the district (namely, 
the new red, the coal-measures, and the Silurian) were unconformable to the other ; 
that this unconformability was rarely locally appreciable, the difference in the dip or 
strike being slight, but was shown by each of the superior formations resting on dif- 
ferent parts of the inferior at different places. The nature of this unconformability 
was exhibited in the cutting of the railway near Dudley, where beds of coal-measure 
sandstone abutted against a cliff of Silurian shale 20 or 30 feet high, both formations 
being nearly horizontal. He then briefly described the boundaries of the southern 
portion of the South Staffordshire coal-field, showing that on the east the new red sand- 
stone was brought down against the coal-measures by a true downcast fault; that the 
coal-measures were worked for some distance beneath the new red sandstone, but 
that they appeared to be suddenly thinning out in that direction near West Bromwich, 
and thata little east of the present workings the Silurian shale had been driven into, ona 
level with the thick coal; that Silurian shale had likewise been met with near the surface 
south of Oldbury, and that it was therefore probable that there was a space on the east 
side of the present coal-field about Sandwell and Smethwick, where the new red sand- 
stone rested directly on Silurian shale without the intervention of any coal-measures, 
but that this space was not of any very great extent, from true coal-measures having 
been reached not far from the Stonehouse near Harborne, and near Aldridge east of 
Walsall. He then traced the western boundary from Wolverhampton to Stourbridge, 
which he showed to be probably a true “downcast fault to the west,” more or less 
complicated by minor faults and branches which spread from it into the coal-field. 
Along the southern edge of the field from Stourbridge, south of Halesowen to Lappal 
and the neighbourhood of Harborne, he described the boundary to be formed simply by 
