ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 59 



Siwah, was the Nomos of Amraon ; a residence of priests, 

 a resting place for caravans, and the site of the temple 

 of the horned Amrnon and the supposed periodically cool 

 fountain of the Sun. The ruins of Ummibida, (Omm- 

 Beydah), belong incontestibly to the fortified caravanserai 

 at the temple of Ammon, and therefore to the most ancient 

 monuments which have come down to us from the early 

 dawn of civilization. (Caillaud, Voyage a Syouah, p. 14 ; 

 Ideler in den Fundgruben des Orients, Bd. iv. S. 399- 

 411). 



The word Oasis is Egyptian, and synonymous with 

 Auasis and Hyasis (Strabo, lib. ii. p. 130, lib. xvii. 

 p. 813, Gas.; Herod, lib. iii. cap. 26, p. 207, Wessel). 

 Abulfeda calls the Oases, el-Wah. In the later times of 

 the Caesars, malefactors were sent to the Oases; being 

 banished to these islands in the sea of sand, as the Spaniards 

 and the English have sent criminals to the Palklands or 

 to New Holland. Escape by the ocean is almost easier 

 than through the desert. The fertility of the Oases is 

 subject to diminution by the invasion of sand. 



The small mountain-range of Harudsh is said to consist 

 of basaltic hills of grotesque form (Bitter's Afrika, 1822, 

 S. 885, 988, 993, and 1003). It is the Mons Ater of 

 Pliny; and its western extremity or continuation, called 

 the Soudah mountains, has been explored by my unfortunate 

 friend, the adventurous traveller Ritchie. This eruption 

 of basalt in tertiary limestone, rows of hills rising abruptly 

 from dike-like fissures, appears to be analogous to the 

 outbreak of basalt in the Yicentine territory. Nature 

 often repeats the same phenomena in the most distant 



