'Persian Gulf. Handbooks prepared under the direction of the Historical Section of the Foreign Office - no 81' [‎7] (13/94)

Per8i an j ARABIAN COASTAL REGION
7
with independent Oman in the interior. The most
important physical feature is the hilly tract which,
commencing at Ras Musandim (the entrance of the
Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. proper), sweeps round in a curve parallel
to the coast as far as Ras el-Hadd. The range whose
northernmost part is the mountainous district of
Ras el-Jebel is known as the Ha jar of Oman. It is cut
into two parts by the great cleft known as the Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows.
Semail, and in the lofty Jebel Akhdar reaches heights
approaching 10,000 ft. The rocks are mainly of lime
stone, but around Muscat there is an outcrop of
volcanic serpentine which extends for about 10 miles
along the coast. Igneous rocks are also found on the
coast in the neighbourhood of iSur, and in a few places
inland.
Along the Trucial coast A name used by Britain from the nineteenth century to 1971 to refer to the present-day United Arab Emirates. of the promontory of Oman
there is a wide and sandy maritime plain, but further
north, in the Ras el-Jebel district, the mountains fall
steeply into the sea. On the eastern side of the promon
tory the long and narrow coastal plain of Batina inter
venes between the mountains and the coast for a
distance of 150 miles, but in the neighbourhood of
Muscat the coast is again mountainous and steep, and
east of this the hilly district of east Hajar comes close
to the sea. Inland the Dhahira district extends to the
north-west for a distance of about 100 miles. It is a
plain of uneven surface which slopes down from the
foothills of Hajar to the Ruba el-Khali, in which its
drainage is lost. South-east of this, Oman proper con
sists of a central plateau shut in on the north by Jebel
Akhdar and on the south by the desert; its surface,
outside the oasis, is rough and broken, and the central
portion is a stony plain thickly dotted with small
volcanic hills. The district in the south, however, has
a wide and level surface sprinkled with dwarf mimosa
and bunches of desert grass. Inland, in east Hajar,
are sandy plains and a network of small valleys, with
occasional patches of cultivation. Fertile districts in
this south-eastern coastal region are:—
(«) Parts of the Batina coastal plain, which are