140 Note on the Strata cut through in excavating for [No. 2. 



Section of Strata in Wddi Araba. 



An inclined plane open to the sky leads down to the shaft, with steps 

 to the first water drain, the rope of which is provided with two buckets, 

 one at each end, so that one bucket reaches the wooden platform of 

 the stage below, when the other is at the superior stage. A stationary- 

 rope serves to prevent the bucket from swinging as it descends with its 

 load ; the rope being slightly held with one hand to steady it. 



The first stage in order of descent, contains three feet of alluvial 

 matter ; three feet of glauconic or greenish clay ; twenty-four feet of yel- 

 lowish clay with gryphcea virgulata in great quantities ; one foot green 

 grit or sandstone ; six feet of a yellow ferruginous sandstone ; — all 

 of which, except the alluvium, are ascribed to the chalk formation.* 



Seventy-five feet of plastic refractory clays, in regular layers of white, 

 grey, blue, and yellow. Each layer is nearly three feet in thickness, 

 the series being repeated in the same order to the entire depth of 

 seyenty-five feet. In all these clays are found a few gryphoea of differ- 

 ent species, and some bivalves. 



At the depth of about one hundred and twelve feet the clays cease 

 to appear. 



Below them there are, in order, six feet of white, marly, shell lime- 

 stone, containing several species of the family Echinidse, and others of 

 old date, three feet of marly, grey limestone — very compact and with- 

 out shells ; two feet of dark brownish clay, very pure. A series of 

 refractory, white, grey and bluish clays reach down to the depth of 

 140 ft. below the surface, succeeded by fifteen feet of a blackish slaty 

 clay ; — all without fossils. Below this are seven feet of slaty clays of 

 greyish hue, intercalated with grey, argillaceous, compact limestone con- 

 taining two species of ammonites six inches in diameter, and traces of 

 bituminized vegetable substances. One foot quartzose sandstone, com- 

 pact, white, — with veins of a reddish and greyish colour, and fragments 

 of bituminous plants ; — three feet of compact greyish limestones embed- 

 ding small nodules of galena, and some bivalves (cardium) ; — one foot 

 of psammitic sandstone, quartzose, white, compact ; — one foot of the 

 same more compact, — fracture slaty, — colour blackish grey ; — one foot 



* From the bottom of the chalk formation down to 182 ft. the Bey ascribes the 

 strata to the lias formation, but not with sufficient and satisfactory organic evih 

 dence.— T. J. N, 



