1920.] of the Maroccan'' Middle- Atlas y 269 



What I call the "Terrace '' is really a single row of micro- 

 scopic plateaux at a half to a third of the way up the 

 '' North Slope." 



Commencing at Azrou, where one of them is earmarked 

 as the site of a pulmonic sanatorium, these little plateaux 

 extend to the westward, it appeared to me, at any rate as 

 far as Ain Leuh. 



Were it not for the numerous gullies, now carved deep 

 and wide in the Slope, many of the "Terraces" would be 

 continuous ; and since they divide the limestone outcrop from 

 that of the clay-slate and old rock below, it is conceivable 

 that this feature is an ancient geologic formation of the 

 " beach " type, so th:it the name by which I have chosen to 

 distinguish it from the main " Phiteau '^ may be less inap- 

 propriate than at first glance. 



The " Terrace '' has soil for a good crop of wheat, but 

 oidy those parts near the Military Posts are cultivated, the 

 remainder can only, as yet, be used as pasture at " shepherd's 

 own risk " — quite a real risk, for even during my short visit 

 the Berber mountaineers made several raids, resulting in loss 

 of stock and casualties among the herdsmen. 



I may here say that I could see neither in "Terrace" 

 nor " Mamelons "' any analogy to the "escarpment^' and 

 "boulder-mounds" described by IMaw at the base of Great- 

 Atlas, south of Marrakech. 



(b) PhyiicaJ and Biologlcid. 



To the traveller entering the Lesser-Atlas from the 

 Atlantic coast, by the " Route Imperiale " through Meknez, 

 nothing is more apparent than that on arrival at Azrou, he 

 is about to enter a quite new tyjie of "country." 



After having made his first step-up from the maritime 

 plain (or " Meseta ''), except for the absence of its cork- 

 woods, the Sebu marshes and the narrow " Zizyphus zone" 

 of the first foot-hills, he will find in the Fez-Meknez plain 

 little of novelty ; the same flat wastes of palmetto scrub, the 

 same ty[)es of cereal cultivation, and composition of floral 

 tapis, with bird-life corresponding to the similar environment, 



