© region are chiefly due to the results of this post-Eocene disturb- 
— §nce, for it not only caused the elevation of the Mesozoic beds, 
* 
Geology and Natural History. 491 
sae to the age of the stratified rocks of Palestine and the 
ebanon region. It is now an established fact, that the great 
Sinai, spreads also over the greater part of Palestine and the 
tanges of Lebanon and anti-Lebanon, and probaby prevails east 
of the’Jordan and the Dead Sea, in Gilead, Moab, and Idumea. 
The earlier explorers seem to have been misled by the strong 
external resemblance of the light-colored limestones which they 
observed in Palestine to the rocks of the White Jura of Europe, 
are Cretaceous, and probably later than the Cenomanian stage. 
As to the Tertiary formation, he states, from Fraas and Lartet, 
that the Eocene occars in Syria south of Tarabulus (Tripoli) ; 
Primordial or Cambrian group passes gradually into under- 
lying crystalline schists without unconformability or any abrupt» 
lithological chan Primordial includes argillytes and 
e. The 
fine-grained mica schists (which are sometimes staurolitic, chlo- 
ritic and oceasionally contain tourmaline) together with quartzyte 
or sandstone, and limestone. : 
The upturning of the series of beds in the Cantabrian Moun- 
tains is attributed to lateral pressure, and occurred, as he shows, 
tion of the parallels of latitude. 
e Mesozoic beds overlie the upturned edges of the Carbon- 
8t or toward the close of the Carboniferous, acting in the direc- 
d 
. 
but also modified sensibly the relief of the Paleozoic masses, 
Ee eneed the great difference of level between the coal beds of | 
t : 
Asturias, which are worked eve w the sea-level at 
7 
n belo 7 
Arnao, and those of the Cantabrian chain in which they have a 
