FAUNA AND FLORA OF SINAI, PETRA, AND WADY 'ARAB AH. 57 



CHAPTER X. 



GHOR ES SAFIEH TO GAZA. 



On December 27 we finally struck tents and left our camp in the 

 Gh6r es Safieh. As we passed westward near the south end of the 

 Dead Sea some interesting features were observed. The waters vary in 

 their surface level about 3 feet between the brief wet period and the 

 minimum level. During our visit they stood at a low level, and the drift 

 of timber and terrestrial shells showed an upper margin at a uniform height 

 in several places. Where the shore slopes very gradually, as in most 

 places round the southern end, this variation in depth is sufficient to leave a 

 wide space of foreshore uncovered. This was very noticeable during our 

 journey along the base of Jebel Usdum, at the south-west corner of the 

 Dead Sea. The water was there about 600 yards from the line of drift. 

 Inside this was the usually traversed track along the base of Jebel Usdum, 

 and above, about 7 vertical feet higher than the present high-water drift, 

 was an older well-marked margin, looking very recent and pointing to a 

 still continuing evaporation of its waters in excess of the supply. 



Logs of palm-trees frequendy marked these margins, and these were 

 seen embedded in a drifted position in the marls of Jebel Usdum as much 

 as 27 feet above the highest level now attained by the waters of the sea. 

 Palm-tree trunks were also seen along the river Tufileh in the Ghor el 

 Feifeh and lower about its estuary. These were probably, from their 

 appearance, torn out of its bed during a flood in a semi-fossilized condition. 

 Thus the subsidence of this sea has continued and is continuing, and earlier 

 deposits are being continually carried down to form more recent ones and 

 to fill up the cavity. Most parts of the Dead Sea south of the Lisin are 

 very shallow. In two places, when looking for a swim, abreast of Jebel 

 Usdum and north from the Gh6r es Safieh, I waded out several hundred 

 yards without getting water above my knees, and the water, like that at 

 the mouth of the Jordan at the other end, is usually turbid. The work 

 of reclamation steadily proceeds, and as the sea is known to be of very 

 considerable depth (200 fathoms) in other places there is abundant room 

 for the inflowing sediment. 



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