INTKODUCTOKY CHAPTER.' 



Geographical Position, Physical Features, and Geology, f 



The island of Socotra lies off the north-east corner of Africa, in lat. 12° 19' 

 to 12° 42', and long. 53° 20' to 54° 30'. Its extreme length from east to west 

 is about 72 miles, and its breadth about 22 miles. From Cape Guardafui 140 

 miles, it is a little more distant from the Arabian coast (about 500 miles 

 from Aden), and still further away from the Indian Peninsula. It is the most 

 easterly elevation of land on a coral bank lying to the north-east of Africa, 

 upon which, between it and Cape Guardafui, other islands (Abd-al-Kuri, 

 Kal Farun, Samneh and Darzi — known commonly as The Brothers — and 

 Saboynea) of smaller size occur. On no part of this bank is the depth of 

 water over 200 fathoms, but between it and the African coast is a channel 

 reaching 500 fathoms. Around Socotra is a narrow coral reef. 



The surface features of Socotra at the present time are those of a mountainous 

 island. The shore line on its southern aspect is, as the map shows, a tolerably 

 continuous one, unbroken by deep inlets or bays. On the northern side occur 

 a few shallow bays at the mouths of the streams, which afford the only 



* For general accounts of the island of Socotra, see- 

 Isaac Bayley Balfour: On the Island of Socotra, in Report of the British Association, 1881. 



Id. : The Island of Socotra and its Recent Revelations, in Transactions of the Royal 



Institution of Great Britain, 1883, 

 H. Capitaine, in L'Explorateur, vol. iii. p. 265. 

 Guillain: Documents sur l'Afrique Orientale, Paris. 

 Heuglin, in Petermann's Mittheilungen, 1861. 

 P. M. Hunter: Socotra, in Bombay Gazette, May 18, 1876. 

 51 R. Ravenstein: The Island of Socotra, in Geographical Magazine, vol. iii. (1876), pp. 119-124, 



with map. 

 Phil. Robinson : Socotra, the New Field for Missionary and Commercial Enterprise. London, 



Clowes & Son, pp. 1-12, with map. 

 Georg Schweinf urth : Ein Besuch auf Socotra mit der Riebeckschen Expedition. Freiburg, 



i. B., 1884. 

 Alexander Scott: Remarks on the Natural History of Socotra. Edinburgh, 1881. 

 J. R. Wellsted: Memoir on the Island of Socotra, in Journal of the Royal Geographical 



Society, vol. v (1835), pp. 129-229. 

 Also see Articles in Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, vols, vi., vii., xv. 

 f T. G. Bonney: On a Collection of Rock Specimens from Socotra, abstract in Proc. Roy. Soc, 



No. 221 (1882), pp. 145-148. Id.: On a Collection of Rock Specimens from the 



Island of Socotra, in Phil. Trans., 1883, pp. 273-294, with plates vi., vii. 



