HUDLESTON : GEOLOGY OF PALESTINE. 
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Jebel Usdom, close at hand and only 400 feet high. This is divided 
geologically into three portions, the lowest (Fig. 6. 3 ) is the rock 
salt, the thickness of which is variously estimated from 80 to 200 
feet. It weathers into numerous pinnacles, some much larger than 
others, and these pinnacles are Lot’s wives. By all accounts it 
must be rather like a crevassed glacier. Upon this come beds of saline 
and gypseous clay (Fig. 6 3 ), and in this series are regular beds of 
gypsum ( x ). The whole is supposed to be surmounted by chalk- 
with-flint, like any other of the higher Cretaceous beds in the district. 
Such is the isolated ridge of Jebel Usdom, and many are the 
speculations as to its origin. Some have regarded it as an old de- 
posit of the Dead Sea, or rather of its predecessors at a higher level 
like the deposits of the Lisan, but its structure is very different to 
these extremely thin-bedded deposits. I will merely say that M. 
Lartet concludes it to be part of the Cretaceous series, where the 
saline and gypsiferous element is in excess, and he points out 
certain horizons, especially in the upper chalky beds, where there 
is a considerable development of salt and gypsum, though nothing 
like what occurs here. Lartet says that the position of the hill from 
a stratigraphical point of view is also favourable to the notion, 
whilst we have already seen that the limestone series south of Jeru- 
salem to the borders of the Sinai sandstone is throughout so saline 
that decently potable water is very scarce. Somehow the salt of 
the old Cretaceo-nummulitic sea has never been fairly washed out of 
it. We must conclude therefore, for the present, that Jebel Usdom 
is merely an exceptionally saline development of the Cretaceous rocks 
which form the principal part of the rim round the basin of the 
Dead Sea. 
Canon Tristram, I may observe, who formerly advocated the 
notion of these being old Dead Sea deposits brought up by a swell- 
ing of the ground, has lately abandoned this idea, and now places 
Jebel Usdom at the top of the Nubian Sandstone, which he is 
disposed to regard as “New Red.” This seems to me a most 
gratuitous conjecture, although there may be evidence in the back- 
ground, which that author does not adduce. This concludes the 
section relative to the Cretaceous and Nummulitic limestones. 
