215 
low that the boat remained aground for a long time in 
the middle of the passage. At length we landed at Suez< 
about eleven o'clock in the morning. 
A little higher than the place where we embarked 5 , 
is a ford where camels and horses can cross over at any 
time. 
Our fleet was anchored in the port at two miles dis- 
tance. 
Having made a great number of observations, and 
comparisons to determine the march of the caravan in 
a given time; having calculated exactly the distance, 
and the number of steps, and compared the hours of 
the march, with the difference of latitude, observed at 
two points, with regard to the obliquity of the lines 
marched over, I found by a medium, that the caravan 
had journeyed generally 13,392 French feet an hour, 
or 2,232 toises. As the road from Tor to Suez follows 
almost always the meridional line, these comparisons 
and their results are infinitely more exact than all the 
calculations which may be made upon lines more 
oblique or farther removed from the meridian. , 
If on the one hand nature has been scanty in her 
vegetation upon the shores of the Red Sea which I have 
visited, she has been extremely prolific of fossils. 
From the great abundance of mollusc ae polyssis and 
zoophytes is produced the matter of the calcareous con- 
cretions, and the little depth of this sea, added to the 
elevated temperature of the atmosphere, contributes to 
accelerate these operations of nature in such a manner, 
that the observer who wishes to study, and to know the 
phenomena of petrifactions, cannot, I am persuaded, 
find a better cabinet than the shores of the Red Sea. 
Although circumstances prevented me from making 
continue j investigations, yet nature works here in so 
