118 ON EROSIONS OF THE EARTH'S SURFACE. 



a gorge often not more than 30 feet wide, but 1600 feet deep ; said to be the most 

 remarkable defile in Switzerland. A road has been blasted through the overhang- 

 ing rocks, high above the river, the Middle Bridge being not less than 400 feet 

 high. Yet, in 1834, the river rose nearly to this bridge. — Handbook for Switzer- 

 land, Paris, 1849, p. 222. 



10. Wady Barida, in Anti-Lebanon, in Syria. — This is a long gorge (length not 

 given), in limestone, with walls from 600 to 800 feet high. — Described by Rev. Mr. 

 Thompson, American Missionary, in the Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. V. p. 762. 



11. Gorge and Natural Bridge on Dog River, the Lycus of the Ancients, in Mount 

 Lebanon. — The width of this gorge is from 120 to 160 feet; its length six miles, 

 and the height of the bridge, 70 to 80 feet. Span of the arch, 163 feet. — Described 

 by Mr. Thompson, in the Bibliotheca, vol. V. p. 2. 



12. Gorge in limestone and a Natural Bridge, on the River Litany, in Mount Leba- 

 non. — This stupendous gorge is many miles long : and so narrow in many places 

 that persons standing on the opposite sides can converse. The walls are in the 

 deepest part a thousand feet high. The bridge is formed by large rocks falling 

 from the cliffs. This spot deserves more minuteness of detail. It is described by 

 Rev. Eli Smith, of Beirut. — Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. VI. p. 373. 



13. On the Euphrates, near Diadeen, in Armenia. — A natural bridge occurs here, 

 100 feet wide, 150 feet high, and more than 100 feet long. Another bridge occurs 

 50 rods lower down the stream, 40 feet high, and 100 feet wide. The banks of 

 the river, for miles above and below these bridges, are 100 feet high. No less than 

 eight hot sulphur springs occur on the banks of the river at the bridges, which 

 reach down even to high water. — Letter from Rev. Justin Perkins, D. D., American 

 Missionary, dated at Ooroomiah, July 20, 1848. 



14. On the River Raveondooz, near a town of that name in the Rborclish Mountains. 

 — This river, says Dr. Perkins, is "about as large as Chicopee river (in Massachu- 

 setts), and is engulfed between perpendicular limestone banks, that rival in awful 

 grandeur those of the Euphrates, above Diadeen, and are indeed quite unparalleled 

 by anything of the kind I have ever seen, even the banks of the Niagara below 

 the falls; except that the river itself is small. These perpendicular rocky banks 

 are in some places nearly a thousand feet high." — Letter from Dr. Perkins, dated 

 July 9, 1849. 



15. " There is a similar gorge, on our return route (from Mosul to Ooroomiah), 

 on the river Sheen, in Jeloo." — Same letter. 



16. Wady el Jeib, at the south end of the Dead Sea, in Palestine. — This is a 

 gorge lying at the bottom of Wady Arabah, a wady within a wady, and has been 

 apparently excavated by the winter streams that flow northward into the Dead 

 Sea. It commences 40 miles south of that sea, and terminates a few miles south 

 of it, where a limestone terrace stretches across- the wady Arabah. The width of 

 the defile, at its lower part, is half a mile, and the height of its walls 150 feet. It 

 is in soft limestone, belonging probably to the cretaceous formation. — See Robinson 

 and Smith's Bib. Researches in Palestine, &c. 



