OF SEVERAL PARTS OF WESTERN ASIA. 367 



eight feet below the Black Sea. As we follow the valley of the 

 Jordan northward from its mouth, we ascend at the rate of about 

 twenty feet in a mile to the lake of Genesareth, which is a little 

 over sLxty miles from the Dead Sea. North of this lake, the 

 ascent of the Wady is more rapid, until it is lost among the 

 mountains of Anti-Lebanon ; though, after all, I strongly suspect 

 the plain of Coelo- Syria to be a continuation of the Arabah ; and 

 thus we should make its termination to be not far from the mouth 

 of the Orontes. 



I ought to have mentioned, tliat about ten or twelve miles south 

 of the Dead Sea, ledges of limestone, some hundreds of feet high, 

 curve around so as to cross the entire valley of Arabah. But a deep 

 gorge, not less than half a mile broad, fifty miles long, and more 

 than one hundred feet deep at its northern exti'emity, called 

 Wady el Jeib, is found to cut through the limestone terrace, 

 forming a bed for the waters of winter to descend towards the 

 Dead Sea. I ought, also, to state, that all the lateral Wadys 

 north of the watershed in the Arabah, tend towards the north, or 

 in a direction opposite to those south of the watershed. 



Now it is almost exclusively along the valley of the Ai-abah 

 that we find the traces of ancient and recent volcanic action. 

 Beginning at its southern extremity, we find ti'avellers describing 

 granite and trap rocks in the vicinity of Akabah ; and Burckhardt 

 says, that ancient volcanic craters occur in that vicinity. In go- 

 ing northerly, a lofty range of luountains, the luountains of ancient 

 Edom, bounds the east side of the valley ; but of their natm-e I 

 know nothing till we reach Petra, where sandstone abounds ; 

 probably the new red sandstone. A little to the north, the order 

 of strata in ascending the mountain, three thousand feet high, 

 according to Robinson and Smith, is fimestone at the base, next 

 porphyry, forming the main body of the mountain ; above this, 

 sandstone ; and at the top, limestone. Between this place and 

 the Dead Sea, limestone is the only rock spoken of by ti*avellers 

 along the Wady, and it is said that the mountains all around that 

 sea are of limestone. This is certainly the case on the west 

 side : but those on the east side have not been so well ascertained. 

 Ii'by and Mangles found fragments of gi-anite and porphyry on 



