CHAPTER IV.
DEBBET ER RAMLEH.
Hitherto our course had lain through a region in which limestone was the prevalent formation, either rising into hills and escarpments, or forming the solid floor, and underlying more recent deposits. But now we were about to enter one composed of more ancient rocks, rising from beneath the limestone beds, and consequently producing a variety of scenery differing from that we had hitherto witnessed. The first of these older formations consisted of red and variegated sandstone, already referred to as the "Desert Sandstone," which with the "Nubian Sandstone" forms a wide belt of comparatively level country along the base of the limestone escarpment of the Tîh for a distance of about one hundred miles. Commencing on the west with the Debbet er Ramleh, and stretching eastwards along the line of the Wâdy Zelegah, W. Biyar, and W. el Ain, to the margin of the Arabah Valley, it terminates along the line of a great dislocation (or "fault") against the hills of porphyry, which there bound the Gulf of Akabah on the western side.
This extensive tract of sandstone, so rich in its colouring, so peculiar in its rock sculpturing, separates the limestone plateau of the Tîh on the north from the mountainous region of the Sinaitic peninsula on the south, which culminates in the rocky heights of Jebel Serbal, Jebel Mûsa, and Jebel Katarina, formed of gneiss, granite, and porphyry. We were now about to enter on the elevated sandstone district of Debbet er Ramleh;[1] and, near the head of Wâdy Hamr, the spot where the limestone gives place to the sandstone can be clearly determined, as the latter formation may be observed rising from beneath the former on the northern slopes of this deep glen.
We camped for our noonday meal on the Ramleh Plain, over which were scattered beautiful little round pebbles of quartz, jasper, and agate, of divers colours. In full view was the limestone escarpment of the Tîh,
- ↑ Or "Plain of Sand."
