22 Notice of Minerals from Patestine. 
only on the strength of this last suggestion, that I should ven 
ture to send you so meagre a box as the present. The con- 
tents have been picked up, without any pains, here and there, 
as I have been passing on other business. A few specimens 
have been kindly given me (from Egypt and elsewhere) by 
my brethren. | hope to be able, if my life and residence in 
this land should be prolonged, to send you something of the 
kind, more worthy of your acceptance, hereafter. 
You might expect from me some geological sketch of the 
country, but I shail leave it for some abler hand. [I can just 
say, however, what probably you already know, that the 
country is secondary, and the leading rock limestone. This 
rock presents itself, in the banks of rivers, and of the sea, and 
on the slopes of the mountains, in thin layers, running, in di- 
rections from horizontal to perpendicular, in every degree of 
obliquity. Flint is very common on the surface, and is seen 
in great knobs, studding some particular layers of the lime- 
stone. Peirifactions, as you will see from the specimens 
sent, are very common on Carmel and on Lebanon, but I 
have never visited the former, nor the highest ranges of the 
latter. Good marble must exist in the country, though I know 
not ofa single quarry, The little marble that is seen in mon- 
uments and buildings, seems to have been gathered up from 
the ruins of ancient buildings. Some fine fragments are to 
be found of the Verd Antique and similar marbles, but they 
were probably imported. Pillars of gray granite are lying 
in heaps at Tyre and other places, and occasionally a few are 
seen of the red kind. One immense column of the latter 
kind lies prostrate in Tyre, near some splendid ruins, and 
forms a part of a wretched garden wall. The shape is quite 
peculiar, intended doubtless to exhibit a front like a double 
column. A right section of it would Jeave a figure like this. 
It is likely that the latter kind of granite, and perhaps the 
former, was imported from Egypt. 
P.S. The consul has sent me a few specimens of coal 
lately discovered near this in the mountains. From him also 
I have obtained the petrifactions of fish. I add a vial of Dead 
sea water as a curiosity, which I took from the sea myself. 
Ifany of my family friends should ask the favour of two or 
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