J. MILNE ON THE SINAITIC PENINSULA AND N.W. ARABIA. 23 



traces of them must have been seen in the beds of the wadies which 

 so rapidly descend towards the Eed Sea. 



Ahaba to Suez (see tig. 1). — The northern end of the Gulf of Akaba 

 having its shores bounded by granite hills, the consistency of which is 

 tolerably equal throughout, the disintegration carried on by the 

 sea has not tended to produce such an irregular outline as would 

 have been formed had there been more variety in their character. 

 At the north-western part of the gulf, however, between Ras el 

 Musry and Jezeret Faraun there is a slight exception to this. Here 

 some soft limestones coming down to the coast between granite hills 

 have been cut back to form a small bay, whilst their boundaries 

 stand out as two small headlands. The rock composing these 

 points is greyish in colour and granitic in nature, but varies con- 

 siderably both in tint and texture. Opposite to Jezeret Faraun, or 

 Pharaoh's Isle, it is somewhat pinkish, and contains well-formed 

 plates of mica, of the size of a shilling, and even larger. 



The limestone, which dips about 15° to the north-east, is in parts 

 quite white ; but the bulk of it is of a yellowish tinge. Near the 

 granite, against the sides of which it evidently rests, there are beds 

 of a strikingly bright pink colour. In places on this exposure, which 

 is about 800 feet in thickness, it shows itself like a compact chalk ; 

 whilst in other parts it is earthy, but contains interposed bands 

 of solid stone from 2 to 4 feet in thickness. 



In the cliffs near Has el Musry there are beds of irregularly 

 shaped flints and fossil remains, of which only a fragmentary 

 specimen of an Echinus was collected. The valley up which these 

 limestones run, called Wady Musry, is identified by Dr. Beke as 

 being Pihahiroth or " the entrance to the caves," traces of which 

 are to be seen a few miles distant from the shore. 



Leaving the Gulf of Akaba at its north-west extremity, the Hadj 

 road, on which the pilgrims to and from Mecca annually travel, 

 rapidly rises, being bounded on its north and south sides by long- 

 narrow reddish- coloured heaps of debris, made up, not only of 

 granitic rocks, but also of fragments of limestone. A short distance 

 beyond this the termination of these mounds is found in some 

 reddish granitic hills, which for the most part are apparently 

 porphyritic. 



At about an elevation of 1000 feet you enter the upper part of 

 Wady Musry, bounded on its western side by the continuation of 

 the same range of limestone rocks seen between Eas el Musry and 

 Jezeret Faraun, dipping in apparently the same direction as before, 

 15° N.E. 



The rock itself is compact in appearance, very like a hard chalk, 

 and contains many fossil remains, portions of Echini, Pectines and 

 Ostreaz being common. 



On the east side of this valley are much-decomposed granite rocks, 

 of ill-defined reddish and greenish colours, which merge from one 

 to the other. Those of a reddish tint are felsites, and are, as usual, 

 harder than the dark-green porphyries which they occasionally 

 traverse. 



