'The Expedition for the survey of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, carried on by order of the British government, in the years 1835, 1836, and 1837; preceded by geographical and historical notices of the regions situated between the rivers Nile and Indus. In four volumes. With fourteen maps and charts, and embellished with ninety-seven plates, besides numerous wood-cuts. Volume the first.' [‎390] (467/905)

gqq the merj arjun. [chap. xvii.
marked than those on the opposite side. The prolongation of
the western range, from the B6ghaz ) passes in the neighbour-
hood of Kalat-ish-Shukif under the name of the Merj Arjun :
for some distance it runs along the Leontes, and then quits
it in two branches, which are almost parallel to each other,
taking as before a south-westerly direction. The eastern and
lower of these branches consists of swelling limestone hills,
and valleys covered with the prickly oak, 1 occasionally show-
in^ basaltic rocks on the eastern side. The higher and more
western range of Belad Bshirrii* is undulating and cultivated,
having a succession of hill and dale thickly wooded on the
western slopes, or towards the sea. The south-western pro
longation of this and the preceding range are cut off by a
cross-range of a similar description, which, from the coast,
about four miles south of Tyre, traverses this part of the country
in a south-easterly direction as far as Safet, where it meets
the principal range belonging to the western side of the
valley. The latter quits the Merj Arjun where the separa
tion above mentioned takes place; and from thence it runs
southward or parallel to the Nahr Hasibiyah and the lake of
El Huleh, passing Keds Kedeh and Kubr Hairan, to Safet.
These hills are, for the most part, rounded and tame, and are
generally without trees or shrubs; they show at Kadita, as
on the shores of the lake of Tabariyeh, dark volcanic stones ;
and again at Safet numerous naked volcanic cones. 2 Beyond
this town the principal chain becomes less marked, and the
groups sent westward from it more numerous but less de
fined. In its southern prolongation from Safet, the former,
as it approaches the waters of Tabariyeh, sends out the groups
of Ish Shagur in a western direction as far as the plains of
Acre : and again from the banks of the Jordan, southward of
the lake, a double line of groups takes the same direction
along Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. -el-Bireh; of these the most remarkable peaks
Mount Tabor, are the wooded limestone cone of Mount Tabor, rising to
more than 1000 feet above the plain; that which is called the
mountain of precipitation beyond Nazareth; and in a line
1 Biblical Researches in Palestine, &c., by Ed. Robinson, D.D., vol. III.,
p. 372. 8 Ibid. pp. 336, 367.