"الجيولوجيا والموارد المعدنية في كلٍ من محافظة ظفار ومسقط وعُمان" [و‎‎٣‎٨] (٩٦/٦٥)

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searched it is very likely that the above-mentioned clay from the
Jabal Samhan scarp will be found to be a fuller’s earth suitable for
edible purposes (largely for the absorption of oil matter).
As this matter is of some interest I shall quote extracts from
Carter’s 1857 publication (Geological Papers on Western India),
page 585. Writing of ‘chalk’, he says, ‘By chalk here is meant a
soft, white, earthy limestone, or gritty calcareous deposit belonging
to the Nummulitic series; there is no genuine chalk on this coast . . . ’
Then discussing the top of the argillaceous strata of Jabal Samhan, •
he wrote (page 586), \ . . the argillaceous division, which presents
strata of various colours, but chiefly a red one; one of which, a
dark-red clay stratum, of a soapy nature, presented an excavation
which the Bedouins told us was made by their women, who came
there occasionally to eat the clay . . . ’ He adds, ‘ These red strata
pass into white and grey, compact, limestone strata, more or less
thick, more or less fine in structure, more or less lithographic in
appearance, above which comes a whitish yellow, chalky deposit,
more or less argillaceous, from which the Bedouins cut their pipes,
and then a white, compact limestone again . . . ’ I am not able to
say, without samples, whether the edible, red clay is ‘bentonitic’ but
it is of course not a fuller’s earth, nor is it possible to say if the
Bedouin ‘pipe’ clay is of ‘meerschaum’ (sepiolite) which Little has
called ‘soapstone’ quite correctly (the Kasai specimen, not the Qara
sample, which is fuller’s earth).
Faints and Chert
83 There is a great abundance of small and large fragments of
true flint as well as of chert and related chalcedonic and similar
siliceous material to be found strewn on the bare plains of the Qarn
Shaiba country from south-west of Hanun to Thenut and Obet
(see paragraphs 41 and 77). Similar fragments are to be found
near Risut, up the Nagar Ghaiz wadi, and also near the debouche
of the Rizat (Ar’Zat) wadi and elsewhere along the southern side
of the Jabal Qara in the Jurbaid or Dhufar plain If large blocks
of flint were required to make 3-inch to 4 inch l-> a s / ,r a r ° ^
grinding mill, then a very thorough search wou ave o
made in such places as the Hanun wadi, as blocks large enough to
yield such ‘balls’ are uncommon. For smaller material there is
abundance of flint in the northern area, but rather spread abroad
on the extensive plains (of a very bare country). wo Oara
to collect even a ton of flints from any area south of the Qara
mountains, between Risut and Takah. I is even Outun
to find flints at all within the Qara mountains south of the A1 Quti
(watershed).
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