186 GEOLOOr. 



These beds usually weather with a remarkably pre- 

 cipitous scarp, and being of considerable thickness and 

 perfectly horizontal, they are unusually conspicuous. 

 To them is due in a great measure the great difficulty 

 of access of most of the high ranges, and especially of 

 the ambas or hill-forts, which are so abundant in Abys- 

 sinia. The higher ranges are perhaps as fine an example 

 as could be found of the terraced ridges which are so 

 characteristic of bedded traps. There is a remarkable 

 resemblance to the scenery of the Western Deccan and the 

 higher valleys of the western ghats in India, but the pecu- 

 liarities of the landscape are exaggerated in Abyssinia. 



Many of the trachytic beds are brecciated, and several 

 are highly columnar. The dolerites associated with them 

 are usually compact, amygdaloid being less abundant 

 than in the Ashangi beds. Still it is far from uncommon, 

 and the nodules are occasionally enveloped in green 

 earth. An instance of this was observed at the crest of 

 the Alaji pass between Meshek and Atala. 



Sedimentary rocks are interstratified with this series 

 in places, as in the gorge of the Jitta river, and again 

 near Magdala. The beds met with were Avhite argil- 

 laceous rock at both places, and, at the Jitta alone, 

 coarse sandstone and black shale. The sections have 

 been described in the first part of this work. The beds 

 do not appear to extend for any distance. 



No fossils could be found :^ there is consequently 



1 I was informed by Dr. Schimper that when King Theodore made his 

 military road for the transport of his guns across the Jitta gorge, some 

 petrified trunks of trees were met with in the sandstone. 



