The struggle of the nations - Egypt, Syria, and Assyria . vide the country down thecentre, are composed of the same kind of calcareous rocks and sandstone, whilethe same sort of reddish clay has been deposited on their slopes by the glaciersof the same geological period. Arid and bare on the northern side, theysend out towards the south featureless monotonous ridges, furrowed here and Drake remarked in the Lebanon several varieties of limestone (Bluiton-Duake, UnexploredSyria, vol. i. pp. 90, 91), -wliicli have been carefully catalogued by Blanche and Lartet (Duo deLuYNES, Voyage dexploration
The struggle of the nations - Egypt, Syria, and Assyria . vide the country down thecentre, are composed of the same kind of calcareous rocks and sandstone, whilethe same sort of reddish clay has been deposited on their slopes by the glaciersof the same geological period. Arid and bare on the northern side, theysend out towards the south featureless monotonous ridges, furrowed here and Drake remarked in the Lebanon several varieties of limestone (Bluiton-Duake, UnexploredSyria, vol. i. pp. 90, 91), -wliicli have been carefully catalogued by Blanche and Lartet (Duo deLuYNES, Voyage dexploration a la mer Morlc, vol. iii. pp. 40, 41, 49-58). Above these strata, whichbelong to the Jurassic formation, come reddish sandstone, then beds of very hard yellowish limestone,and finally marl. The name Lebanon, in Assyrian Libnana, would appear to signify the whitemountain; the Amorites called the Anti-Lebanon Saniru, Shenir, according to the Assyrian• texts (Fr. DELrrzsou, Wo lag das Paradies? p. 104) and tlie Hebrew books {DeiU. iii. 9; 1 23).. 6 THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE, there by short narrow valleys, hollowed out iu places into basins or funnel-shaped ravines, which are widened year by year by the down-rush of ridges, as thej^ proceed southwards, become clothed with verdure and offera more varied outline, tlie ravines being more thickly wooded, and the summitsless uniform in contour and colouring. Lebanon becomes white and ice-crownedin winter, but none of its peaks rises to the altitude of perpetual snows: thehighest of them, Mount Timarun, reaches 10,526 feet, while only three othersexceed 9000. Anti-Lebanon is, speaking generally, 1000 or 1300 feet lower thanits neighbour: it becomes higher, however, towards the south, where the triplepeak of Mount Hermon-^ rises to a height of 9184 feet. Tlie Orontes and theLitany drain the intermediate space. The Orontes rising on the west side of theAnti-Lebanon, near the ruins of Baalbek,^ rushes northwards in
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjecthistoryancient, booky
