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
=Wadi Aqilhoq=, which drains the eastern parts of Gebel Shellal,
courses about parallel to Wadi Shellal a few kilometres further
south. It contains a well, =Bir Frukit=, about twenty kilometres up
from its mouth, near some dark conspicuous foot hills called Gebel
Balatitda. This well yields a constant supply of very good water,
and is the place where I sent for my water supplies in commencing my
return march to Port Sudan. The position of the well as shown on the
map is only approximate, but its direction having been pointed out
with the alidade by guides from two plane-table stations, I believe
the location is pretty nearly correct.
=Wadi Aqwei= drains east of north from among the foot-hills east
of Gebel Shellal, and enters the sea four kilometres west of Ras
Qubet Isa. Where I crossed it two kilometres from its mouth it was
a broad shallow wadi with plenty of scrub, dividing round a low but
conspicuous gravel bank before reaching the sea.
=Kreit-reit-or= is a similar wadi to that last mentioned, coursing
north-eastward over the plain from among low hills, and entering the
sea five kilometres south-east of Ras Qubet Isa. About two kilometres
south of Kreit-reit-or, at a distance of three and a half kilometres
from the coast, and thirty metres above sea-level, are the bitter
wells of =Ti Kureitra=. These are four wells, sunk about twelve metres
deep in the gypseous strata which here underlie the sand and gravel
of the coast-plain. The wells are lined with slabs of selenite. The
water is so strongly purgative that a number of my Arabs who drank
of it were made extremely unwell, and the wells are chiefly used for
watering the flocks of sheep which graze in the neighbouring valleys.
From the group of conspicuous though not very high hills called Gebel
Hadarba, ten kilometres west of Ras Hadarba (Cape Elba) many drainage
channels cross the coast-plain towards the sea in a direction north
of east. Some of the drainage lines form the north side of the hills
reach the sea east of Ti Kureitra wells; but others lose themselves in
a quicksand called =Kuatianai=, or “the devourer,” which covers
a large triangular space of about twenty square kilometres about the
cape. At the actual cape, rocks are visible at the coast, and the
quicksand, so far as I could judge from a distance, appears to be
really a lagoon, filled with the sand washed down from the hills. The
Arabs state that camels wandering on this sand get swallowed up; the
colour of its surface is distinctly darker than the rest of the plain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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