12 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
fact, a large portion of it yet remains entirely unexplored. A 
few travellers have crossed it from different points, and have 
published rough sketches of the routes they have taken ; but we 
have not sufficient data for any accurate description of it. I 
shall therefore confine myself to a few general remarks upon 
its character, grounded chiefly upon observations of my own 
during two hurried journeys across it — the first undertaken in 
1861, when I rode from the southern pass of Bakineh in the 
Jebel et-Tih, by the castle of Nukhl, and Beersheba, to 
Hebron ; the second in 1865, when I traversed the desert on 
foot from Akaba to Suez, following the course of the Hadj 
route, or road taken by the pilgrims from Egypt to Mecca. 
This desert may be briefly described as consisting of an ex- 
tensive plateau of limestone rock, supported and enclosed on the 
south by a long range of mountains, which, commencing on the 
west, runs for a distance of nearly sixty miles almost parallel to 
the Gulf of Suez, under the name of Jebel er-Bahah ; and then 
changing its name to that of Jebel et-Tih, and circling round 
towards the east, shapes its course in the form of a festoon, 
suspended from the heads of the two gulfs of Suez and Akaba. 
Throughout its whole course, this range presents a singularly 
unbroken and tabular outline, especially the western portion of 
it ; the eastern portion appears to be broken up into several 
almost parallel ranges, as it approaches Akaba. 
The plateau of the Tih is bounded on the east, and separated 
from the valley of the Arabah, by the range of mountains 
which stretches down from the Dead Sea to the head of the 
Gulf of Akaba. 
The best maps represent the north-east portion of this 
plateau as being drained by wadies flowing into the Arabah, 
which conveys their waters to the Dead Sea. But the whole of 
the remaining portion is drained by the numerous branches of 
the Wady el-Arish, which empties itself into the Mediterranean 
Sea, about fifty miles south of Gaza, and which formed the an- 
cient boundary between Egypt and Palestine, under the name of 
the Biver of Egypt. Its surface presents a succession of large 
undulating plains, studded with low mountain ranges, which 
appear generally to run from south to north ; its rocks are com- 
posed chiefly of calcareous limestone, which in some places is 
very rich in Echinodermata and other fossils ; its plains are 
hard and pebbly, often covered with numerous flints of dark 
colour, which contrast strangely with the glaring whiteness of 
its mountains. The southern and more elevated portion of this 
plateau is singularly barren, but as it slopes northwards, and 
the branches of the Wady el-Arish increase in number and size, 
the vegetation increases in proportion. The fall being small, 
the water often stands in the broad shallow wadies for a con- 
