liv PKOCEEDI>"GS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



tion between the Cretaceous and the Eocene strata, the Nummulite 

 representing the older Tertiary, and Ostrea vesicularis as certainly- 

 belonging to the chalk. Not even in the deep and rugged defile of the 

 Cedron are strata of any older formation laid bare : the rock-hewn 

 cells and chambers of the monastery of Marsaba are hollowed out 

 of the same soft Hippurite-limestone which has served for the cata- 

 combs at Jerusalem ; and it is only some miles further towards the 

 east that, where the valley begins to open out, grey sandy marls, 

 alternating with black bituminous limestones containing numerous 

 Baculites, represent the middle " greensand" of Western Europe. 

 As for the great chasm of the Dead Sea and the lower valley of the 

 Jordan, not only does the latest geological visitor record the entire 

 absence of any products that can be ascribed to volcanic action, but 

 he avers his conviction that it is simply the result of erosion out of 

 a range of strata of almost perfect horizontality. The period of the 

 opening out of this huge depression is put back beyond the Tertiary, 

 because no deposits of that time are met with between the Lebanon 

 and Egypt, and it would seem that Palestine had never been sunk 

 beneath the sea since the end of the Cretaceous epoch. 



That the Dead Sea for a long time occupied a level of more than 

 300 feet higher than at present, and that its waters must thus have 

 extended far up towards the lake of Tiberias, is evident from several 

 circumstances ; but even the days of that higher water-level must 

 have been very long ago, and it is quite out of the question to 

 admit that any great feature of the phenomena, such as the rend- 

 ing of the valley, or the change of the character of the water, could 

 have been effected by volcanic agency within the historical period. 



The wearisome monotony of the evenly-bedded Cretaceous strata 

 of Judaea extends into Samaria and Galilee ; but the interruption of 

 the plain of Jezreel brings at last a refreshing change, where the 

 richer red soil, and the loose masses of black stone cropping to the 

 surface, tell, even at a distance, of the vast basaltic flows which 

 seem to start from the lesser Hermon, to occupy broad tracts of the 

 country up to Tiberias, and then, beyond the lake, to stretch far 

 away into the distant Hauran. 



In most of his main views of the stratigraphical structure of 

 Palestine, Dr. Fraas agrees with M. Louis Lartet, who had already, 

 in 1865, exposed the absence of proof for the existence of rocks 

 older than the Cretaceous period*; but this promising young geo- 

 logist had the advantage of penetrating, with the Due de Luynes, 

 the hill-country of the eastern side of the Dead Sea, and thus ma- 

 king the first geological observations on a tract which the peculiar 

 habits of the Semitic race render it so dificult to traverse. Thus 

 he was enabled, at the base of the Arabian chain, in a north and 

 south direction, from the middle of the Jordan valley down to Mount 

 Hor, to find outcrops of a ferruginous sandstone which he considers 

 to be the lowest bed visible in the whole country, still Cretaceous, 

 and probably the same whicb, in the north, has yielded the lignites 

 of Lebanon, and on the south is so noticeable in the dark-red rocks of 

 * BiOI. de la Soc. aeol. de France, 1865. 



