RECENT INVESTIGATIONS IN MOAB AND EDOM. 243 
has been comparatively easy, and I had no difficulty in 
moving about the country, except when the Turks were so 
anxious for my safety that they imsisted upon sending a 
couple of soldiers with me. 
Edom and Moab, so closely connected with the history 
of Israel, are interesting from the complete agreement of 
their physical features, as in the case of Palestine, with 
the slight topographical notices contained in the Bible. 
From the Dead Sea and the Jordan valley there is a steep 
ascent to a high-lying plateau. This plateau, which, on the 
north, has an elevation of 2,640 feet above the sea, rises 
eradually southward until it attains above Petra an altitude 
of 5,300 feet, or a height of something like 6,500 feet 
above the surface of the Dead Sea. Eastward it falls away 
with an easy slope until it loses itself in the Syrian desert, 
which extends to the Euphrates. The plateau, and the 
remarkable valleys that imtersect it, are the result of 
the physical processes which caused the formation of the 
Jordan valley and the Dead Sea; and this fracture of 
the earth’s crust gives much of its peculiar character to the 
scenery. As regards the geological formation, a section in 
the vicinity of Petra gives at the bottom red sandstone 
and conglomerates, and then, in ascending order, car- 
boniferous limestone with fossils, the variegated Nubian 
sandstone in which the tombs and temples of Petra are 
cut; and limestone, with thick beds of flint, which corre- 
sponds to our chalk. It is this cretaceous limestone which 
forms the surface of the platean and gives to Moab and 
Edom many of the characteristics of our Sussex downs 
and Yorkshire wolds. The limestone, dipping towards 
the east, passes here and there under sheets of basaltic 
lava due to comparatively recent volcanic action. 
A peculiar feature of the country is the number of deeply 
cut ravines that intersect it from east to west. These 
ravines are not wholly formed by the action of running 
water, but are connected with the fracture and subsidence 
of the earth’s crust to which the great rift owes its origin. 
They are really cracks at right angles to the line of 
the Jordan-Arabah fault. This great line of fracture is 
continued down the Red Sea and is apparently found in 
the great rift of Central Africa. The recent investigations 
of Captain Lyons in Egypt have shown that the Nile valley 
is also due to a fracture probably of the same age. 
The natural features of the country are well distinguished 
R 2 
