Proceedings of the expedition to explore the northern coast of Africa, from Tripoly eastward : $b in MDCCCXXI. and MDCCCXXII., comprehending an account of the Greater Syrtis and Cyrenaica; and of the ancient cities composing the pentapolisBeechey, Frederick William
History
Proceedings of the expedition to explore the northern coast of Africa, from Tripoly eastward : $b in MDCCCXXI. and MDCCCXXII., comprehending an account of the Greater Syrtis and Cyrenaica; and of the ancient cities composing the pentapolis
Beechey, Frederick William
Sidra, Gulf of (Libya); Tripoli (Libya) -- Antiquities; Tripoli (Libya) -- Discovery and exploration
From this circumstance the Doctor derives a new proof that the
sand-hills have travelled from the southward; and in further proof
of the non-existence of any chain of hills in this quarter, he has
instanced the passage of northerly winds from the Mediterranean,
to find their equilibrium in the southern regions of Africa; which
passage they could not have effected, he supposes, if they had had a
chain of hills to get over in their journey! The Doctor then proceeds
to relate the expedition of the Psylli, as recorded by Herodotus,
in further support of his position[6]; but in telling us that when
these unfortunate gentlemen arrived on the confines of the desert,
they were all of them buried in the sands which there assailed them,
he does not express the surprise which might be expected at their
not having met with a similar accident long before they arrived
at that point; for this misfortune might assuredly have happened
with equal probability before they set out on their journey to
the southward, if the whole of the country, as we are informed by
the Doctor, consisted of nothing else, from the desert to the sea,
but the formidable red sand which at last put an end to them. The
fact is, however, that the “ampia depressione” which is stated
by Signor Della Cella to exist between the bottom of the gulf and
the great desert, is unfortunately interrupted by a chain of hills,
a little inland, of at least four or five hundred feet in height;
and we will venture to assert that, in the whole of the tract which
has here been described by the Doctor, there is no part where high
land does not intervene between the sand-hills and the desert
alluded to. We are sorry to place so substantial an impediment
in the way of the northerly wind, which the Doctor imagines could
not go to the southward to gain its equilibrium if such a bar were
placed in its route; but if the whole country from the sea to the
Niger were never again to be refreshed with this desirable breeze,
we must still be obliged to leave our hills where we saw them in
spite of so severe a misfortune. In stating that the level supposed
to exist between the bottom of the Gulf of Syrtis and the great
desert is not uninterrupted by hills, we must also observe that
these hills are not of sand, and that a great portion of marshy
and stony land is mingled with the sand which the Doctor states
to be exclusively found there. We must at the same time remark,
that the only part where the sand is red is in the neighbourhood of
the sulphur mines; and this peculiarity may be considered as wholly
occasioned by the nature of the soil where it is found. It is besides
of so fine a texture as to partake more of the nature of dust than
of desert sand, which is neither so red nor so light. It is not
raised up in large heaps like the sand on the beach, but scattered
over the surface in little hillocks, on which a scanty vegetation is
occasionally observable. In fact this substance has no resemblance
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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