538 
TIIE WADIES OF AEAETA PETEJSA. 
of the information may be questioned in both cases, but similar 
practices, on a smaller scale, are matter of daily observation in 
many parts of Southern Europe. Much of the wine of the 
Moselle is derived from grapes grown on earth carried high 
up the cliffs on the shoulders of men. In China, too, rock 
has been artificially covered with earth to an extent which 
gives such operations a real geographical importance, and the 
accounts of the importation of earth at Malta, and the fertiliza¬ 
tion of the rocks on Mount Sinai with slime from the Hile, 
may be not wholly without foundation. 
Wadies of Arabia Petr mi. 
In the latter case, indeed, river sediment might be very 
useful as a manure, but it could hardly be needed as a soil; 
for the growth of vegetation in the wadies of the Sinaitic Pen¬ 
insula shows that the disintegrated rock of its mountains re¬ 
quires only water to stimulate it to considerable productive¬ 
ness. The wadies present, not unfrequently, narrow gorges, 
which might easily be closed, and thus accumulations of earth, 
and reservoirs of water to irrigate it, might be formed which 
would convert many a square mile of desert into flourishing 
date gardens and cornfields. Hot far from Wadi Feiran, on 
the most direct route to Wadi Esh-Sheikh, is a very narrow 
pass called by the Arabs El Bueb (El Pab) or, The Gate, 
which might be securely closed to a very considerable height, 
with little labor or expense. Above this pass is a wide and 
nearly level expanse, containing a hundred acres, perhaps 
much more. This is filled up to a certain regular level with 
deposits brought down by torrents before the Gate, or Bueb, 
was broken through, and they have now worn down a channel 
in the deposits to the bed of the wadi. If a dam were con¬ 
structed at the pass, and reservoirs built to retain the winter 
rains, a great extent of valley might be rendered cultivable. 
