At Twenty-Eight Minutes From The Mehatet El Hadj Are Three
Similar Columns, Entire, But Lying On The Ground.
We were an hour and
three quarters in ascending from the bridge to the top; on this side the
road might easily be made passable for horses.
In several places the
rock has been cut through to form the path. The lower part of the
mountains is calcareous; I found great numbers of small petrified
shells, and small pieces of mica are likewise met with. Towards
ARABS HAMAIDE
[p.375] the upper part of the mountain the ground is covered with large
blocks of the black Haouran stone,[It is from this black and heavy
stone, (which M. Seetzen calls basalt, but which I rather conceive to
belong to the species called tufwacke by the Germans), that the ancient
opinion of there having been mountains of iron on the east side of the
Jordan appears to have arisen. Even now the Arabs believe that these
stones consist chiefly of iron, and I was often asked if I did not know
how to extract it.] which I found to be more porous than any specimens
of it which I had seen further northward. On the summit of this steep
southern ascent are the ruins of a large square building, of which the
foundations only remain, covered with heaps of stone; they are directly
opposite Araayr, and the ruins above mentioned are also called Mehatet
el Hadj. I believe them to be of modern date.
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