Vol. 55.] SOUTHERN MOROCCO AND THE ATLAS MOUNTAINS. 207 



The westerly trend of the route followed continues as far as Asni, 

 where once more the traveller turns southward into the mountains. 

 A mile beyond Asni these rise abruptly, and on entering them 

 the Wad Reraya divides, as before mentioned, into two branches, 

 the Wad Ait Mesan and the Wad Iminnen. 



At first the traveller picks his way through a narrow gorge, cut 

 out of a series of variegated sandstones, shales, and limestones, 

 dipping at a low angle northward and rising to a height of over 

 7000 feet above the sea. A mile or more farther up, the gorge 

 widens out into a glen, when an intrusion of porphyrite alters the 

 dip of the sandstones from a low northerly to a high southerly dip, 

 rising to the vertical where they abut, as they do a little farther 

 on, against a series of metamorphic rocks broken into by 

 diorites, porphyries, etc. Once more the glen contracts into a wild 

 and picturesque gorge simultaneously with the geological change. 

 Gradually, as one penetrates farther into the mountains, intrusive 

 masses of diorite and porphyries become more frequent, until they 

 form the greater bulk of the rocks. At length, when right in front 

 and at the base of the culminating heights, the Wad Iminnen turns 

 eastward at a spot coincident with the reappearance of a series of 

 metamorphic rocks, whose strike is parallel to the trend of the 

 glen, the much-shattered slates being more easily weathered than 

 the massive and compact igneous bosses. Prom the summit of the 

 Tizi Likumpt, at a height of over 13,000 feet, it is possible to 

 follow, by tracing the surface-features, the course of the combined 

 core of metamorphic and igneous rocks as far as the Jebel Asif Sig 

 (or Miltsin of Adm. Washington), and to assure one's self that the 

 mass of Tizi-n-Tamjurt is of similar composition. 



(6) From Amsmiz across Gindafy to Sus. (Fig. 5^ p. 208.) 



Further insight into the structure of the Atlas is afforded by the 

 glen of the Wad Amsmiz in the flanking mountains, and the glens 

 of the Wads Nyfis and Agandice in the central massif and on the 

 southern slope. 



On entering the glen of the Wad Amsmiz, the first rocks traversed 

 are a thin series of white limestones and cream-coloured sandstones 

 lying in vertical beds against metamorphic schists, and forming the 

 northern slope of the mountains. On the traveller's left, going 

 southward, he finds the whole massif composed of much bedded and 

 jointed metamorphic rocks, seamed with veins of flesh-coloured 

 porphyry ; while on his right similar rocks are capped by a great 

 series of fine cream-coloured sandstones and limestones dipping 

 shghtly southward, and ending in a great fault where the mountains 

 rise in another giant step. A couple of miles farther on the 

 Wad Amsmiz divides, one branch spreading itself over Jebel Tezah, 

 the other cutting deep into the mountains. Crossing, at an altitude 

 of over 10,000 feet, the slates and grauwackes of which Jebel 

 Tezah is composed, the traveller descends into the deep glen or 

 valley of Gindafy, the middle mountain-course of the Wad Kyfis. 



