Page:An Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine.djvu/106

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90
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90

90 THE JORDAN WATERSHED.

right bank, and retaining the former name till it receives the Wady el Makuk on the same side. The long rocky chasm ceases about half a mile before the junction with the Makuk. The Wady el Makuk rises midway between Deir Diwan and Mukhmas, near the road that connects those villages, and . passes Eas et Tawil (alt. 1,964 feet) in a rocky chasm called W. Sikya. It is the drain of the south-western part of the basin. After the confluence the Makuk is bulged slightly to the northward by el 'Subakah, a spur from the southern water- parting, which provides a tributary from the 'valley on its southern side. The Wady now dives north-eastward into a rocky chasm, where it receives the Wady Abu Jurnan, which rises near Khubbet Eummamaneh (alt. 2,024 feet) and skirts the northern edge of the basin. The chasm conducts the wady to the southern extremity of the enclosed plain, where 'Ain en Nuei'ameh supplies its final name as well as a peren- nial stream, the latter being also augmented by 'Ain ed Duk. The Nuei'ameh now flows to the south-east, and divides the southern extremity of the hilly tract which terminates in 'Osh el Ghurab or the Kaven's Nest, from the long line of lofty cliffs which here forms the eastern base of the Mountains of Judsea. It crosses the Ghor on an easterly course, and descends to the Jordan at the ford of el Ghoraniyeh (1,250 feet below the sea).

THE BASIN OF WADY EL KELT.

The western edge of this basin is about nine miles in length, beginning on the north at Bethel. As far as Bireh, it joins the el 'Auja basin, which falls into the Mediterranean on the north of Jaffa. From Bireh to Shafat the western edge meets the north-eastern part of the Nahr Eubin basin, which includes the Plain of el Jib or Gibeon on the north of Jerusalem, and which enters the Mediterranean on the south of Jaffa,

The northern edge has been already described (p. 84). The southern departs from the west near Shafat ; bends round

to Anata, and eastward to the rock of Arak Ibrahim ; then it