228 Reviews — Prof. Suits Survey of Palestine. 



Mr. W. H. Hudleston, in a presidential address to the Geologists' 

 Association in 1882, to which the same author added further notes 

 in March, 1885. 



It can hardly be expected that in the course of the short period of 

 two months, in which the active work of the Expedition was carried 

 out, Prof. Hull should have been able to add very materially from his 

 own observations to the already existing knowledge of the subject. 

 But though the contents of this memoir have been, to no small 

 extent, derived from secondary sources of information, it is still a 

 valuable contribution to the geology of Palestine, and the statements 

 and opinions it contains will be, by many, more relied on than those 

 of equally competent but supposed less orthodox investigators. As 

 a rule, however, Prof. Hull's researches confirm those of previous 

 investigators. By a strange irony of fate indeed, the author has 

 proved that one of his own pet theories of the former outflow of the 

 Jordan, through the Arabah valley into the Bed Sea, is not tenable, 

 and he now finds the water-parting in this valley to be some hundreds 

 of feet above the level which the waters of the Dead Sea basin 

 reached, even in their greatest extension. 



As regards the ancient crystalline rocks of the Sinaitic region, the 

 author accepts, though somewhat hesitatingly, the views of Fraas and 

 others that they are of Archaean or Laurentian age. On this sup- 

 position, the volcanic series which penetrates through them may bej 

 the author states, " of Lower Silurian age, but if we consider the 

 older schists to be metamorphosed Cambro-Silurian beds, then the 

 newer series may be of Upper Silurian or of Devonian age." It 

 would be interesting to know the grounds, if there are any, for con- 

 sidering these crystalline schists to be of Cambro-Silurian age. The 

 author says in a footnote, " As in the case of those portions of the 

 British Isles where the Lower Silurian rocks have been metamorphosed 

 previous to the deposition of the Upper Silurian beds to which they 

 are unconformable." We fail to derive any assistance from this 

 remarkably indefinite comparison, and should have preferred to have 

 had a more particular reference. 



There is a great gap between the Archaean crystalline and volcanic 

 rocks of the Sinaitic peninsula and the succeeding formation of purple 

 and red sandstones, of Carboniferous age, which overlie them un- 

 conformably. In the Wady Nasb this sandstone is covered by a 

 band of limestone, in which Mr. Bauerman discovered fragmentary 

 fossils of Carboniferous age. Some doubt was thrown upon the 

 determination of these fossils, but this expedition obtained others 

 which decisively prove the Lower Carboniferous age of the lime- 

 stone, and the sandstones beneath are also regarded as of the same 

 period. The band of Carboniferous limestone is, in its turn, overlaid 

 by sandstones of similar characters to those beds below it, and 

 these higher or Nubian sandstones pass upwards into limestones of 

 Cretaceous age, and are themselves probably of Cenomanian age. 

 In the absence of the Carboniferous limestone band — which appears 

 to be not extensively developed — there are no means of determining 

 whether the basal beds of the variegated sandstones are Carboniferous 



