12 J. MILNE ON THE SINA1TIC PENINSULA AND N.W. ARABIA. 



the outliers, which afterwards proved to be a soft whitish limestone. 

 On the west coast these outliers are more or less continuous up to 

 the head of the Gulf, whilst on the east side there is only the 

 granite and its long heaps of debris stretching down towards the 

 shore. Looking at these outliers from a distance, it is at once 

 noticed that the granite surface on which they rest is invariably 

 flat, showing that it had been planed down to an even surface 

 before the deposition of the superincumbent beds, which in their 

 turn, by the comparison of the flat tops they now cover with the 

 adjoining serrated ridges of granite which at one time it is probable 

 that they also overspread, show the immense amount of denudation 

 that has been going on since their removal. 



Wady Araba (see figs. 1 & 2). — When within five or six miles 

 of Akaba, the relation of this Gulf to the broad and open valley of 

 the Araba, leading northwards towards the Dead Sea, is strikingly 

 observable. Although upon the east and west the ground is high, 

 before one (to the north) it is so level that it is almost impossible to 

 indicate the point at which the sea and land meet. Looking up this 

 trench from the south, in the distance the mountains upon the right 

 and left appear to grow lower, until by sloping downwards they 

 finally vanish in two points upon a line forming an horizon for 

 earth, sea, and sky. 



Looking at the map, it will be seen that the Gulf of Akaba forms 

 one extremity of a long north-and-south hill-bound trough, the 

 other extremity of which is beyond the Lake of Gennesareth, at the 

 northern end of the valley of the Jordan, a distance of more than 

 200 miles. An east-and-west profile across this trough taken a few 

 miles above Akaba is represented by the eastern end of the section 



(fig. 1). 



When standing in it you appear to be in an almost flat valley, 

 about five miles in width, having no perceptible rise towards the 

 north, but to the east and west rising gently towards the flanks of pre- 

 cipitous granite hills, its deepest portion, which is marked by a 

 north-and-south line of vegetation, being nearer to its western side 

 than to its eastern, as shown in the section. By actual observation, 

 however, it appears that the boundaries, which are apparently hills, 

 are only the serrated edges of two tablelands, which on either side 

 rise about 2000 feet above the sea — broadly speaking, the western one 

 being chiefly granite capped with limestone, and the eastern one 

 being granite capped with sandstone and conglomerate. The con- 

 sequence of this is that the high mountains as seen from Akaba and 

 the Araba, are from the tableland comparatively low hills. 



Taking a section from south to north, from Akaba up the Araba, 

 through the Dead Sea and up the valley of the Jordan past Gennesa- 

 reth (fig. 2), it will be seen that the greater portion of the surface of 

 this ground is below the level of the sea, and all that separates the 

 Dead Sea, which is in a depression about 1300 feet below the 

 neighbouring oceans, from the Gulf of Akaba is a slight rise of from 

 200 to 500 feet, 



Therefore, should there have been an elevation of the land in 



