278 MAJOR-GENEEAL TULLOCH^ C.B., C.M.G., ON 



prevalent trade winds. This is the greatest instance we bave on 

 the surface of the globe of the power of the wind upon water, and 

 about that I think none of us have the slightest cause to disagree 

 with the author of this paper. As a geologist I feel'somewhat 

 gratified with the author's views, because I ha.ve alwajs beld, with 

 some other observers, as, for example, Sir J. W. Dawson {Modern 

 Science in Bible Landfi, p. 391), that from geological causes the 

 waters of the Red Sea ran up higher into the isthmus than they do 

 at present, filling the great Bitter Lake, and I think it was the great 

 engineer Sir John Coode who first showed that there was the clearest 

 evidence that the Isthmus of Suez had formerly been the bed of 

 the Red Sea. What is the fact ? The fact is, that that valley 

 consists of a superficial covering of sand, to which the author bas 

 referred, which of course generally is being drifted and has been 

 so for thousands of years ; but when once you get down to the solid 

 material below that sand, you find the floor of the isthmus to be 

 an old sea bed, consisting partly of calcareous material with shells 

 and corals, the same, I suppose, as those existing in the Red Sea at 

 the present day. Therefore we have clear geological evidence that 

 the Red Sea did extend, as the author has stated, at least as bigh as 

 this comparatively high ridge (El Guisr), where he states there was a 

 fortified road across into Palestine and Arabia. Not only is the floor 

 of the isthmus formed of an old sea bed, but the author is doubtless 

 aware that at the height of 220 feet — the height of the Mosque 

 of Mehemet Ali at Cairo — there is an old sea beach, which anyone 

 can see for himself, running along the limestone cliff. You have 

 gravel with shells and various marine forms now living in the Red 

 Sea and the Mediterranean. Consequently, it is quite clear that in 

 very recent geological times the whole of Lower Egypt was covered 

 by the waters of the sea ; and, as the land gradually rose, of course 

 the higher portions emerged before the lower portions, and these 

 would be the last to rise. Is there, therefore, any reason to doubt 

 that more than three thousand years ago, at the time of the 

 Exodus, the elevation of that portion had not gone on to the 

 extent it has at the present day, and that there was a considerable 

 arm of water running up by the Gulf of Suez at least as far as the 

 ridge of El Guisr F 



It is only on geological grounds that you can come to a clear 

 understanding of the passage of the Israelites. I maintain, 

 thei-efore, that the arm of the Red Sea was the Red Sea itself — not 



