The Most Striking Object Of This Portion Of The Crust Of The Globe, Is
The Vast Atlas Chain Of Mountains
[15], which traverses Morocco from
north-east to south-west, whose present ascertained culminating point,
Miltsin, is upwards of 15,
000 feet above the level of the sea, or equal
to the highest peaks of the Pyrenees. The Maroquine portion of the Atlas
contains its highest peaks, which stretch from the east of Tripoli to
the Atlantic Ocean, at Santa Cruz; and we find no mountains of equal
height, except in the tenth degree of North latitude, or 18,000 miles
south, or 30,000 south, south-east. The Rif coast has a mountainous
chain of some considerable height, but the Atlantic coast offers chiefly
ridges of hills. The coasts of Morocco are not much indented, and
consequently have few ports, and these offer poor protection from the
ocean.
The general surface of Morocco presents a large ridge or lock, with two
immense declivities, one sloping N.W. to the ocean, with various rivers
and streams descending from this enormous back-bone of the Atlas, and
the other fulling towards the Sahara, S.E., feeding the streams and
affluents of Wad Draha, and other rivers, which are lost in the sands of
the Desert. This shape of the country prevents the formation of those
vast _Sebhahas_, or salt lakes, so frequent in Algeria and the south of
Tunis. We are acquainted only with two lakes of fresh or sweet
water - that of Debaia, traversed by Wad Draha, - and that of
Gibel-Akhder, which Leo compares to Lake Bolsena.
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