Prof. E. Hull—The Jordan and Dead Sea. 503 
notes, which are rather full on this very subject, though I did not 
consider it necessary to give them in extenso in the Geological 
Memoir, or in Mount Seir. On referring to the large Map of the 
Arabah Valley in the Memoir (facing p. 187), it will be seen that 
the watershed (Lat. 30° 10’ N.) is formed partly of a limestone 
ridge, called Er Rishy, and partly of “gravel of the Arabah.” ‘This 
gravel extends for several miles down both slopes of the watershed, 
and is sometimes overspread by blown sand, or else by alluvium. On 
the west side it is bounded by the steep, often precipitous, cliff of 
the rocks forming the eastern border of the Desert of the Tih 
(Badiet et Tih), and on the east by those of the Edomite hills and 
escarpments; and at its lowest part rises about 700 feet above the 
level of the Mediterranean and Red Seas,! and therefore nearly 2,000 
feet above the present surface of the Dead Sea. On approaching the 
watershed, or saddle, from the south, it appears as a level line 
stretching from the northern end of Hr Rishy to the foot of the 
rugged hills of Edom, and about half a mile in length. It is 
formed of sand and gravel of considerable thickness overlying the 
limestone which rises from beneath on the eastern side, and which is 
broken off by the great Jordan-Arabah fault against the granitoid 
and other crystalline rocks, which here form the base of the Edomite 
range. This gravel has all the appearance of a fluviatile, or alluvial, 
deposit, formed by the streams which in flood time descend from 
the hills to the east; and it is well laid open to view in one of these 
streams, which ultimately joins the River Jeib. Between this water- 
shed and the first of the terraces which can, with any degree of 
certainty, be referred to a lacustrine origin, there is a distance of over 
twenty miles, and a vertical fall of about 700 or 650 feet; and as 
our party was scattered over the valley, we could not have failed to 
detect remains of such lacustrine deposits, if any such existed, above 
the level of those we encountered at our camp of the 12th December, 
1883, at Ain Abu Werideh: at a level approximately that of the 
Mediterranean, and 1292 feet above that of the Dead Sea.* These 
horizontal beds of white marl with shells, sand, and shingle, was an 
entirely new feature to us all; and no doubt remains on my mind 
that they indicate the highest level to which the waters of the ancient 
Jordan-valley Lake formerly rose. 
An. admission on my part that the waters of the Jordan valley 
ever were in connection with those of the outer ocean through the 
Gulf of Akabah can only be made from the point of view that, during 
the formation of the Jordan-Arabah line of depression by the dis- 
placement of the strata along the great fault, and when the whole 
region was rising from beneath the waters of the ocean in Miocene 
times, some such connection existed for a limited period of time; 
but this epoch in the history of the valley was separated by a long 
interval from that of the present Dead Sea, even when standing at 
a level of 1300 feet above its present surface. From the time that 
1M. Vignes’ determination is 787 feet (240 métres) ; that of Major, now Colonel 
Kitchener, is 660 feet; and that of Mr. Reginald Laurence by aneroid 680 feet. 
2 Mount Seir, p. 99; Geological Memoir, p. 80. 
