1S60.] Geological Specimens from the Persian Gulf. 3GI 



with the exception of Jibel Allee lying E. S. E. of Seir Abonade, which 

 is 220 feet high ; the island of Sir Beni Yas, and the headland close 

 to it, which are respectively, 430 and 350 feet high ; Jibel Hadeed, 

 about 85 miles futher west, and about 300 feet high, and a few other 

 mounds much lower still, the whole of this shore is on a level almost 

 with the sea, as far inland as the eye can reach, barren and unin- 

 habited, shewing still further how the Gulf, in its lower half, shoals 

 off through the " Great Pearl Bank" into the interior of the mainland 

 of Arabia. 



Leaving this field of volcanic disturbance, in which the outbursts 

 of igneous rocks, 'here and there, have brought up with them the 

 great field of rock-salt whose culminating point above water is in the 

 island of Hormuz, (for all the others which present volcanic rock are 

 thoroughly sodden with salt), we come, on rounding Bas Bekkan 

 northward, to the island of Bahreyn, which at its northern part, presents 

 an extensive area both above and below the sea, of freshwater springs, 

 the artesian nature of wbich is at once established, by the rainless 

 locality in the midst of which they are situated, and the approxima- 

 tion of the mountain chain on the opposite side of the Gulf, only 160 

 miles distant, whose strata raised to upwards of 5000 feet within a few 

 miles of the sea on the Persian side, dip downwards to form the Gulf, 

 and rising again, apparently without much disturbance, at Bahreyn, 

 thus carry their waters with them to issue at a place much lower 

 than that on which they fall. That the presence of these springs 

 at Bahreyn may be thus explained needs only a reference to Captain 

 Constable's beautiful chart, and, for the detail respecting them, here 

 is his own account : — 



" The freshwater springs in the sea about Bahreyn and on the 

 island itself," Captain Constable states, " are numerous, and there are 

 some to be found at intervals near the mainland of Arabia in the 

 neighbourhood ; indeed I was informed by the Shekh of Manama that 

 there is a lake of freshwater on the mainland close to the shore nearly 

 opposite Bahreyn. They are to be found at intervals also as far north 

 as the island of Bu Ali, but none beyond, nor are there any others at 

 any other part of the Persian Gulf ; so that they are confined to this 

 part, that is about 90 miles of the coast of Arabia.. 



" The old travellers who wrote of them, relate how the Arabs dived 



