branner: the stone reefs of brazil. 187 



The consolidated beaches of the Levant. — The earliest descriptions of 

 the reefs of Asia Minor known to the writer are those given by Francis 

 Beaufort.^ He is quoted here at some length (p. 182-186) : — 



" The shore bounding this plain was once a gravel beach ; but from the 

 upper part of the slope to some distance into the sea, it is now a solid crust of 

 pudding stone, from one to two feet in thickness. This petrified beach is not 

 peculiar to the plain of Selinty ; many instances of it on a smaller scale had 

 been already observed on the coasts of Asia Minor, and a few on those of 

 Greece ; and I have been informed that an example of it occurs also in Sicily. 

 Being generally covered with loose sand and pebbles, it presents to the eye no 

 extraordinary appearance. . . . The specimens that I have examined, taken 

 from various places, differ but little from each other ; gravel predominates in 

 some, coarse sand in others, or they lie in alternate layers of each. . . . The 

 cement or paste by which they are united is likewise calcareous ; and so tena- 

 cious that a blow sufficient to break the mass, more frequently fractures even 

 the quartz pebbles than dislodges them from the bed. 



" Close to the westward of Side we had found some ledges of rock, partly 

 above and partly under water, which appear to have been produced in a similar 

 manner : they contain a large proportion of broken tiles, both red and yellow, 

 of shells, bits of wood, and of such rubbish as might be expected in the vicinity 

 of a town. ... At Phaselis also we found a patch of petrified beach ; and 

 again at a few miles to the eastward of Alaya. ... It is needless to enu- 

 merate here all the places where it may be found on this coast. " 



On page 249 this writer gives a small map of Pompeiopolis in which 

 the ancient port is shown to have been filled up with blown sands, and 

 these sands have become solidified on the beach within the port. (See 

 also p. 260.) 



The last case shows that the hardening of the beach has taken place 

 within historic times. 



Beaufort's description of these beaches refers to the southern coast of 

 Asia Minor from the Island of Rhodes eastward. 



Along the coast of Palestine these same phenomena are reported by 

 Botta.2 His description of the reefs is given as a postscript to the article 

 proper, as follows : — 



" P. S. Since this memoir was written I have gone to see a fact first 

 pointed out to me by Dr. Hedenborg. Along the whole coast of Beirout or 

 El Arich to Tripoli is found a kind of conglomerate or argillaceous sandstone 



1 Francis Beaufort. Kararaania, or a brief description of the south coast of 

 Asia Minor, ed. 2. London, 1818. 



- P. E. Botta Fils. Observations sur le Liban et L'Antiliban. Mom. Soc. Ge'ol. 

 de France, Tome I., p. 135-160. Paris, 1833. 



