182 
HUDLESTON : GEOLOGY OF PALESTINE. 
of the Till, a limestone plateau, whose central point is marked in the 
maps as 1,480ft This is about half way between Suez and Akabah, 
and is the place for which the late Professor Palmer was making 
when he was murdered. 
A remarkable limestone escarpment forms the termination of 
the desert of the Tih, wedging itself into the Sinai Peninsula. The 
Negeb or south country, wedges itself into the Tih in a similar man- 
ner. In the Sinai Peninsula the mountains again become very lofty, 
and there are three granite ranges which especially claim attention : 
on the west is Jebel Serbal; in the centre is the Sinai group, culmi- 
nating in Jebel Katarina, the highest peak in the peninsula, 8,536ft.; 
on the south is the peak of Um Shomer, for a long time regarded 
as the highest of all. These lofty mountains of the Sinai Peninsula 
constitute the central section of the tripartite granitic region, which 
is severed by the gulfs of Suez and of Akabah. 
Let us now direct our attention to the topography of western 
Palestine, since this has been surveyed with great accuracy (see 
Figure 1) which affords a meridional section of the whole country, 
I might say, from Dan unto Beersheba. In this section the upper 
sinuous line represents the watershed of western Palestine, between 
the Mediterranean and the Jordan valley ; the middle line repre- 
sented the level of the Mediterranean, and the lower line the course 
of the river Jordan. In sections of this kind the difference between 
the vertical and horizontal scales produces a false estimate of the 
abruptness of the slopes. Bearing this in mind, the section is an 
instructive one, though perhaps it requires a little reflection to 
understand. 
The great basaltic mountains near Safed attain an elevation, as 
I before said, about half the height of Hermon : north-east of this 
great mass, lies the basin of the Huleh marshes, which may be 
regarded as the first section of the Jordan valley system. In this 
marshy hollow the four rivers which form the J ordan unite, and 
open out into the waters of Merom or Lake Huleh, whose surface 
may be regarded as nearly on a level with the Mediterranean. The 
great drop in the chasm of the Jordan valley occurs between Lake 
Huleh and the lake of Tiberias, the fall being at the rate of 68ft. 
