HUDLESTON: GEOLOGY OF PALESTINE. 
197 
from which, at another point neai* Kerak, a remarkable series of 
fossils was obtained. 
In this one section then we have an epitome of the entire series 
of the Cretaceous limestones of Judgea and of Moab. These are the 
beds, and especially the upper chalky ones with flint, whose acquaint- 
ance the traveller in the Holy Land is most apt to make. Denuda- 
tion, going- on probably ever since the Miocene period, has carved 
them out in a variety of ways, and the soft upper beds have received 
much ill treatment. Sometimes everything has been washed away 
except the flints, which are left in long rows, or as circlets round banks 
and knoHs of the harder rocks. Sometimes the material from these 
soft upper beds, fills cracks and crevices in the lower and harder 
ones. Generally one may say that they make a dry soil, and have 
a tendency to produce a wilderness, such as that of Judah. This kind 
of thing is probably repeated in the more terrible desert of the Tib, 
where perhaps there are considerable developments of Nummulitic 
limestone in addition. All these upper limestones are impregnated 
with saline matter, and the water from them is both bitter and 
unclean. 
I ought to say a few words about the palaeontology of the 
Cretaceous beds of Palestine. There are two or three noted locali- 
ties for fossils. One is reported to be near Jerusalem. At any 
rute numerous Ammonites are found on a certain horizon there, such 
as French geologists would call Cenomanian. 
They belong to a type not unfamiliar to collectors from the lower 
chalk or chalkmarl, such as Am. Mantelli, Am. rkotomagensis, Am. 
varians, and along with these are others not known in England, 
though for the most part related to the same group. The Nerinsean 
limestone of J erusalem is celebrated ; it will take a good polish, I 
believe, and I have heard say that the temple of Solomon w^as in 
part constructed of this stone. Its excavation has left great 
galleries in the rocks beneath. The abundance of Nerinaea is 
noteworthy. At least twelve species are quoted by Lartet, not 
of course all from the Jerusalem rock ; and it is this abundance 
of Nerin^a which may have induced the older geologists to regard 
these limestones as Jurassic, since in our country no Nerinsea 
