The geography and geology of south-eastern EgyptBall, John
Science
The geography and geology of south-eastern Egypt
Ball, John
Geology -- Egypt; Physical geography -- Egypt
In its lower stages Wadi Meisah traverses broad open sandy spaces
between low hills, receiving a number of small feeders from either
side. It curves round to the eastward a little south of the hills of
Eqrun and then courses in a north-easterly direction across the sandy
coast-plain to the sea. In the last stages of its course its channel
is very ill-defined, the drainage spreading over the plain. The trees,
which are fairly abundant in its upper parts, become fewer as one
descends, but its lower portions are not always entirely barren, for
after recent rain short grass springs up in its broad shallow bed and
affords a moderate amount of grazing for sheep. The slope of the wadi
floor just below the well is about ten metres per kilometre; lower
down, the gradient gradually lessens, and in the last forty kilometres
of its course is only a little over five metres per kilometre.
=Wadi Kiraf=, the next wadi to enter the sea south of Meisah, is
really the terminal portion of the great =Wadi Di-ib=, the name Kiraf
being only applied to the drainage from the point of junction of the
Wad el Qireira with Di-ib to the sea, that is, for a distance of some
thirty-one kilometres up from its mouth. The Wadi Di-ib is probably
the most important and remarkable of all the seawards draining wadis
of the Eastern Desert of Egypt and the Northern Sudan. I have only
seen that terminal portion of its length which lies in Egypt, that
is, north of the 22nd parallel; but the examinations of that length
(the part of it lying within Egyptian territory, including Kiraf,
is some eighty-five kilometres) is enough to show that the wadi must
drain an enormous basin, for the average slope is the remarkably
small one of two metres per kilometre, and the wadi floor in many
places, instead of being sandy, consists of mud similar to that of
the Nile Valley. According to the “Sudan Handbook,” it rises far
to the south, probably near the 20th parallel, and flows generally
northwards, so that its length must be well over 300 kilometres. Just
before it enters Egypt proper, there is an expansion in its bed
covered with rich alluvial mud, on which crops of _durra_ are grown;
my camels were fed for some weeks on _durra_ obtained from this source
whilst I was working in the neighbourhood. In the present volume I
shall only deal with that portion of Di-ib and its tributaries which
lie north of the 22nd parallel, describing first the main channel
and afterwards its principal tributaries.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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