From the offing, also, we note how the later formations, granite and syenite, seamed with a network, and often topped by cones, of porphyritic trap, have upthrust, pierced, and isolated the older Secondaries. We traced this huge deposit of sulphates and carbonates of lime from the southern Wady Hamz, through the islets at the mouth of the Birkat 'Akabah, all along the shore of North Midian. Here it crosses diagonally the northern third of the 'Akabah Gulf, and forms the north-eastern base of the Sinaitic Peninsula; whilst eastward it stretches inland as far as Magháir Shu'ayb. The general disposition suggests that before the upheaval of the Gháts, the Jibál el-Tihámah, this vast gypseous sheet was a plain and plateau covering the whole country, till a movement of depression, caused by the upheaval of the igneous mountains, sank in it the Gulf of 'Akabah. At present the surface is here flat, there hilly like huge billows breaking mostly to the north, and reaching an altitude of twelve hundred feet above the surface. Hence the lines stretching north-south, the Fahísát, the Red Hills, and the Kalb el-Nakhlah, look like so many volcanic island-reefs floating in a sea of greenish-yellow Secondaries. Like the old Irish post-horse, the difficulty and danger of our "kettle" consisted in starting it: two tubes at once burst, and a new hole yawned in the boiler; moreover, our anchor had been thrown out in a depth of seventy-three feet. Enfin! At nine a.m. (February 3rd) we stood straight for the Sinaitic shore, distant thirteen miles (direct geographical), and in three hours we made the Sharm, Marsá or Minat el-Dahab--the "Golden Anchorage, Cove, or Port."[EN#120] Another hour was spent in steaming southwards to the Dock-harbour, wrongly so called in the charts; the pilots, and the many Sambúks that take refuge in it, know the place only as Mínát Ginái (Jinái). The northern baylet, preferred when southerly winds blow, is simply the embouchure of the Wady Dahab ("Fiumara of Gold"). The name is properly applied to the sub-maritime section of the valley draining the eastern flanks of the so-called Mount Sinai. This great watercourse breaks through the Gháts which, always fringing similar peninsulas, peak to the south. It reaches the Gulf at a shallow sag marked by a line of palms, the centre of three: they are fed by their several Nullahs, and are watered with the brackish produce of sundry wells. The statio malefida is defended to the north by a short sandspit and a submerged reef; and southwards by a projection of sandstone conglomerate. The latter, running from north-east to south-west, subtends this part of the coast, and serves to build up the land; after a few years the débris swept down by the watercourses will warp up the shallows, dividing shore from outlier. Such, in fact, seems to be the general origin of these sandspits; beginning as coralline reefs, they have been covered with conglomerates, and converted into terra firma by the rubbish