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The mountains of the Sinaitic group are composed of the same material from base to summit-granite, mostly bright red granite; this is often intersected, however, with veins of greenstone, and especially porphyry. There is, indeed, what may be called a porphyritic dyke, which runs from northeast to southwest across the entire mass of mountains. As we leave the great elevations of Sinai, and proceed northward, its exclusive granitic character is gradually lost; large masses of porphyry occur; this presently becomes mixed with greenstone, and toward the northwest gives place to syenite. As the syenite and the porphyry run into each other by imperceptible transitions, it is to be inferred that they are of a contemporaneous origin.

Advancing still northward, we presently come to the sandstone belt before described; this flanks the entire northern frontier of the Sinai mountains. It is, however, a comparatively narrow belt, but runs, curving toward the north, clear across the whole peninsula. Within the limits of this belt only is sand, to any depth, to be found in the whole wilderness. Both the sand and the sandstone rock, like the granite, are of a reddish hue, which gives a peculiar richness to the landscape when surveyed from a distance.

This sandstone district is remarkable for the extensive turquoise mines which were worked by the ancient Egyptians in the neighborhood of Wady Mughârah and Serabit el Khadim. Here still remain numerous hieroglyphic tablets, recording the names and titles of the kings under whose auspices they were worked, together

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EGYPTIAN TABLET AT MAGHARAH.

with other archæological relics of the highest interest and antiquity. Hamite iron, magnese, and copper ores, also appear to have been worked in this sandstone district; but the largest workings of copper discovered have been in the granite near Wady Senned, about eight miles northeast of Jebel Musa. Here a vein of ore, which crops up to the surface, has been worked almost continuously for a distance of nearly two miles. Traces of copper smelting have also been found in the valleys of Shellal, Nasb, Mughârah, Senned, and on the coast of the Gulf of Akabah. Far to the northwest, in the Valley Gharundel, slags from copper smelting have likewise been observed. Iron ore was probably worked at Jebel Hadid (Iron Mountain), about ten miles southeast of Jebel Musa. Thus smelting operations have been carried on over a large area of the peninsula, and we have historic evidence that some of these mines were worked by the Egyptians long before the Israelites marched through the wilderness. From all this we can readily understand, what has been a mystery to many, whence that people in their wanderings might have obtained the metallic materials necessary for the manufacture of their arms and tools, and to construct the holy tabernacle with its vessels and utensils.

As we advance northward across the sandstone belt, our course is a gradual descent till we reach its limit, where rises sharply above it, like a mountain's side, the edge or outcrop of the great limestone bed, which overlies the sandstone, and constitutes the Badiet et Tih, or "Desert of the Wanderings." This escarpment in some places

rises to the height of 4000 feet, and from below has all the appearance of a mountain; it begins far northwest, and appears opposite the Gulf of Suez, but at the distance of some ten or fifteen miles from it, where it is called the Mountains of Rahah; from thence it continues in a southeasterly direction, gradually departing from the gulf through an extent of some seventy miles; it now turns and takes an easterly course under the name of the Mountains of Tih; again it curves and runs in a northeasterly course, keeping to the west of Wady Arabah as far north as the parallel of Mount Hor. Thus this bold and remarkable bluff, which constitutes the southern line of the desert of Tih, describes a complete semi-circle. Mounting this from the south, we at once stand on the vast Table Land of Tih, which has an average elevation above the sea level of about 2500 feet. Its general aspect is that of featureless hills of blanched desolation.

This limestone Table Land, Badiet et Tih, extends from the sandstone flank of Sinai, on the south, all the way to the borders of Canaan, on the north; and from the frontier of Egypt, on the west, to the Valley of the Arabah, on the east; and thus covers more than threefourths of the whole of Arabia Petrea. It was mainly in and along the eastern borders of this desert land that the Israelites spent the last thirty-eight years of their wanderings.

Let us now return to the Peninsula, or the Desert of Sinai proper, within whose borders the children of Israel passed the fir fifteen m after leaving Egypt, and

where the question of Subsistence presents its greatest difficulty.

This tract of country, as we have just seen, has now been thoroughly explored-has, indeed, been accurately surveyed and mapped. Professor E. H. Palmer, who accompanied the Ordnance Survey Expedition, spent nearly a whole year in this work. During that time he travelled on foot, as the Hebrews must mainly have done, the whole region of their exodus and wanderings -traced every wady along which their herds and flocks must have grazed, examined nearly every spring and pool and rivulet whence they could have drunk, and ascended every eminence upon which Moses and Aaron could have stood. The result of all has been a gratifying confirmation of the accuracy and truthfulness of the Mosaic history.

"Although the general aspect of the country," says Professor Palmer, "is one of sheer desolation and barrenness, it must not be supposed that there is no fertility to be found there. There are no rivers, yet many a pleasant rivulet fringed with verdure may be met with here and there, especially in the romantic glens of the granite district. At Wadies Nasb and Gharandel are perennial, though not continuous, streams, and large tracts of vegetation. At that part of Wady Feiran where the valley contracts in breadth and concentrates the moisture, we find the most considerable oasis in the Peninsula; and behind the little sea-port of Tor, also, where a depression in the great alluvial plain of El Gaah collects the moisture, there exists a large and magnificent grove of date-palms.

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