The geography and geology of south-eastern Egypt — John Shaqi
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
The geological observations made by Floyer during his expedition
formed the subject of a paper read by him before the Geological
Society of London in 1892.[27] This paper is chiefly remarkable for
the number of grave errors of observation into which Floyer’s
limited acquaintance with geology caused him to fall, and later
researches have fully justified the scepticism with which his
deductions were received by the Society. Thus, for instance, he refers
to the ancient schists and slates of Zabara as “blue clay,”[28]
and to the dark schists and diorite of Abu Hamamid and Abu Gurdi
as “compact granite.” The rocks which Floyer considered to be
“metamorphosed sandstone” are diorites and schists at Um Eleiga
and in the Wadi Gemal, and typical gneisses and granites in the Nugrus
and Hafafit ranges. Not a trace of sandstone has been found to exist
within many miles of the places where Floyer records its metamorphism,
nor has any evidence of the recent volcanic activity reported by him
(_Geog. Journal_, 1893, p. 430) been discovered.
An account of a short visit to the Elba district was published
by BENT[29] in 1896. Bent landed at Halaib and camped near Gebel
Shellal (_Qt_). He thinks that Halaib may have been the town of
_Aydat_ mentioned by the Arab geographers Abu el Feda and Edrisi,
and that it is a place of purely Arab origin. At Suakin el Qadim
(_Qs_) he found among the mounds nothing earlier than Cufic remains,
unless certain graves, formed of four large blocks of coral set
deep in the ground, may be looked upon as a more ancient form of
sepulture. His “Gebel Shendeh” should be correctly Gebel Shendib,
and his “Shendoeh” is correctly Shendodai; the “Riadh”
mentioned by him I have not been able to identify. His estimated
heights are considerably in error; thus Gebel Shendib is really
6,273 feet and Gebel Shellal 4,623 feet instead of the 4,500 feet and
4,100 feet which he gives. The paper contains interesting remarks on
the Hamedorab tribe, which Bent was informed totalled only some 300
fighting men in the entire district from Asotriba to Ras Benas. The
reference to the sheikh as “the batran” is due to a misconception;
Batran was the late sheikh’s first name, and is not a title of
station. The map accompanying Bent’s paper is only to a very small
scale, and formed practically no addition to existing knowledge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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