Buried Cities and Bible Countries

by George St. Clair

By the kindness of Mr W. H. Hudleston, F.R.S., and Secretary of the Geological Society, I am able to illustrate this chapter with a geological map based chiefly on the maps of Lartet, Hull, and Zittel. To a great extent it tells its own story regarding the features of the country, and the rocks and formations of which the region is constructed. The oldest rocks occupy the greater portion of the Sinaitic peninsula, as well as the mountains bordering the Gulf of Akabah, and extending northward along the eastern side of the Wady el Arabah. They consist of granitic, gneissose and schistose rocks, amongst which have been intruded great masses of red porphyry, dark green-stone, and other igneous rocks in the form of dykes, veins, and bosses. These rocks are probably among the oldest in the world. After these ancient rocks had been consolidated they were subjected to a vast amount of erosion, and were worn into very uneven surfaces, over which the more recent formations were spread; first filling up the hollows with the lower strata, and ultimately covering even the higher elevations as the process of deposition of strata went on. The oldest of these formations is the Red Sandstone and Conglomerate, which Professor Edward Hull calls the “Desert Sandstone” formation. It forms a narrow strip along the margin of the old crystalline rocks. It is capped with the fossiliferous limestone of the Wady Nash, which shows it to belong to the Carboniferous period—in fact to be the representative of the Carboniferous Limestone of Europe and the British Isles. It is also found east of the Arabah Valley and amongst the mountains of Moab east of the Ghor. This is succeeded by another Sandstone formation, more extensively distributed than the former. It belongs to a much more recent geological period, namely, the Cretaceous; and is the representative of the “Nubian Sandstone” of Roziere, so largely developed in Africa, especially in Nubia and Upper Egypt. This is succeeded by the Cretaceous and Nummulitic Limestone formations, which occupy the greater part of the map, forming the great table-land of the Tih, from its western escarpment to the borders of the Arabah Valley, and stretching northward throughout the hill country of Judea and Samaria into Syria and the Lebanon.

On the east of the Jordan Valley the Cretaceous Limestone forms the table-lands of Edom and Moab: as far north as the Hauran and Jaulan, where the limestone passes below great sheets of basaltic lava. The Cretaceous Limestone represents the Chalk formation of Europe and the British Isles.

Although the Cretaceous Limestone belongs to the Secondary period, and the Nummulitic Limestone to the Tertiary, they are very closely connected in Palestine, as far as their mineral characters are concerned; and they both contain beds or bands of flint and chert.

GENERALISED GEOLOGICAL SECTION ACROSS PALESTINE.

o, Level of the Mediterranean: a, bed of the maritime plains; m, old lacustrine deposits of the Dead Sea basin; n, deposits now forming beneath the Dead Sea; p, tufaceous deposits of hot springs; h, basalt.

The Cretaceous Limestone underlies nearly the whole of the Jordan and Arabah Valleys, although concealed by more recent deposits, and is broken off along the line of the great Jordan Valley fault against older formations. In other words, on the west we have strata of the age of the English chalk, which dip down very suddenly towards the centre of the valley. On the east we have the Nubian Sandstone, with hard limestone above it geologically coeval with our greensand. It is entirely owing to the presence of this leading line of fracture and displacement, and the subsequent denudation of strata, that this great valley exists, and that the eastern side is so mountainous and characterised by such grand features of hill and dale.

These limestones pass under a newer formation of Calcareous Sandstone in the direction of the Mediterranean, a formation probably of Upper Eocene age, and called by Hull the “Calcareous Sandstone of Philistia.”

The formations next in order consist of raised beaches and sea-beds along the coast, and of lake-beds in the Ghor and Jordan Valley; and these bring us, geologically, much nearer to our own time.

Not only do the physical features of a country depend upon its geological formation, but it cannot be questioned that the character and mode of life of the inhabitants are moulded or modified by the physical features. It is remarked by Professor Edward Hull that the mild patient character of the Egyptian cultivator befits the nature of that wide alluvial tract of fertile land which is watered by the Nile. The mountainous tracts of the Sinaitic peninsula, formed of the oldest crystalline rocks of that part of the world, have become the abode of the Bedouin Arab, the hardy child of nature, who has adapted himself to a life in keeping with his wild surroundings. The great table-land of the Tih, less rugged and inhospitable than the mountainous parts of Sinai and Serbal, supports roving tribes, partly pastoral, and gradually assimilating their habits to the Fellahin of Philistia and of Palestine, who cultivate the ground and rear large flocks and herds.