'A handbook of Syria (including Palestine). London: Naval Staff Intelligence Department, June 1919' [‎263r] (530/738)

PHYSICAL FEATURES
519
with great lava fragments which may be seen lying in abun
dance on the surface ; these tend to keep in the moisture and
so prevent the surface from being dried too quickly and from
becoming cracked. The volcanic elements of the rich brown
soil of the Esdraelon plain are, on the contrary, completely
decomposed, and the water drains off without hindrance.
Consequently under the summer sun the surface of the plain,
where previously inundated, becomes full of fissures and as
hard as stone, while elsewhere the soil becomes dry and loose.
Under such conditions it can be cultivated only after its
abundant soaking in the winter. But after that soaking it
yields a good harvest, and its appearance under cultivation
in the spring, when seen from any point in the neighbouring
hills, has often been compared to a vast green lake. During
the summer months the main stream of the N. el-Muqatta ,
where it traverses the plain, may merely contain pools of
water in its muddy bed, and in late spring its main northern
and western tributaries may be dry. But during and after
the rains all the watercourses from the hills and along the
plain are full and overflowing. In winter the bed of the main
stream does not suffice for the volume of water, so that
inundations occur which leave swamps behind. lor this
reason there are no settlements in the plain itself , and the
villages to-day, as in antiquity, are built on the higher ground
around it.
The break across Palestine which the plain of Esdraelon
affords is in reality a break into the plain of Sharon and not
into that of ‘Akka. Indeed the roads from ‘Akka to the
interior of the country, whether making for the Jordan above
or below Lake Tiberias, travelled in antiquity, as they do
now, through the long parallel valleys of Lower Galilee, north
of the plain. Caravans only enter Esdraelon from c Akka in
order to seek a gateway to Samaria at Jenin. The main lines
of communication from Haifa to the interior skirt the northern
or southern fringe of the plain but do not actually traverse it.
The plain of Esdraelon was celebrated in antiquity for its
fertility and, before Herod the Great developed the cultivation