The next traveller to visit the district, VON HEUGLIN, examined the country from the coast.[14] Sailing southward from Qoseir, he discovered ruins which he thought to be those of Ptolemy’s _Nechesia_, in latitude 24° 55′, a little south of Ras Tundeba. Further south, he enumerates the various openings and anchorages of the coast to Suakin. Gebel Hamata (_Gf_) he wrongly thought might be the Alaqi of the ancient mining records. His “Wadi el Hemmah” is doubtless Wadi Lahami (_Hg_). Rounding Ras Benas, he passed the coral island of Mukawar (Geziret el Ras), and anchored by the ruins of Berenice, which he states to be called Sikait Qibli.[15] In and near the temple ruins von Heuglin found copper nails, fragments of statues, Roman coins, a quartz sistrum and pieces of beryl, besides potsherds and broken glass. Passing Mersa Shab (Sherm Hel el Madfa), he notes a few fishermen’s dwellings on Seyal Island, and a pearl fisher from Jidda plying his calling at a small anchorage called Gota, near Ras Fatma. He mentions Kwolala as “Geziret Elba,” close to the “peninsula of Halaib” (now an island, Geziret Halaib).[16] The Elba mountains he states to be the _Prionotus mons_ of Ptolemy. The “Sherm Qubeten,” which he notes to the south of Halaib, is doubtless Mersa Qabatit of my map. It is to the veteran African traveller SCHWEINFURTH that we owe the first investigations of the Elba mountains, as long surrounded with mystery as the stronghold of dreaded Bisharin tribes.[17] Like von Heuglin, Schweinfurth visited the country from the coast, making excursions inland. Starting from Qoseir in March, 1864, he proceeded with frequent stoppages to Suakin, spending nearly six months in exploring the littoral districts. His chief object was the investigation of the flora of the country, but his accounts[18] contain much geographical and geological information of great interest. He compares the coastal ranges of Africa with the Cordilleras of South America, and the Abyssinian highlands with Quito. The flora of the Elba district he found to be sharply marked off from that of the rest of Egypt by the presence of large numbers of plants of Abyssinian types. Among his geological notes, it is interesting to come across a reference to serpentine, which I have lately found to form the great mountain masses of Abu Dahr (_Gk_), Korabkansi (_Fq_), and Gerf (_Hp_). Schweinfurth wrote, however, in the early days of petrography, and his term “basalts” includes a variety of fine-grained dark eruptive rocks which we should now call by other names. The sulphur mines of El Ranga he characterised as worthless, the mineral being in very small quantity. Schweinfurth’s map of the Elba district was a great advance on anything of the kind previously existing, though it contains many inaccuracies, particularly of place-names, as was in fact only to be expected from his very short stay in the locality. He remarked the separation of Gebel Elba (_Pr_) from the more southern mountains, but failed