Between the village of El Gayat and the mouth of the Wadi Muêla (16 kilometres to the north-west) stretches a gradually rising undulating gypseous plain, superficially covered with loose sand and rounded pebbles of quartz and flint. In occasional small hills the white limestone which forms the underlying rock is visible. Near the entrance to the wadi stands a somewhat prominent conical hill composed of hard whitish fossiliferous limestone passing down into more sandy and clayey beds. The bottom of the wadi is cut out in soft green and brown clays, its surface being covered with blown sand, fragments of limestone, flints and gypsum. From the mouth of the wadi the Nile Valley cliffs run north and south in a winding irregular manner. On entering the valley several outstanding flat-topped limestone capped hills are passed on the right hand; they are in part joined to the regular bounding cliff beyond; the eastern cliff is steep and well-marked, while that on the west only outcrops here and there, buried as it is in immense accumulations of blown sand, rising in places into definite dune-ridges. Wadi Muêla has a length of some 18 kilometres and lies nearly N.W. and S.E. The central part of its floor is a sandy scrub-covered area, the lowest points lying at about + 25 metres; just at the southern edge of the scrub stands a small hill composed of hard shaly clays capped by white limestone, surrounded by a saline, superficially dry. Holes dug in this are at once filled with excessively salt water, and by evaporation of the brine in shallow troughs supplies of white fairly pure salt can be obtained. The area is known as Warshat el Melh. Banks of reeds were found growing on the north side of the saline, the surface of the latter being here composed of a soft brown sandy salty deposit, caking here and there into a hard earthy impure salt.