mineral field formed by a depression in the long range of mountains which runs along the Red Sea Coast.
To the north, in latitude 270,
this range rises into the great porphyry peaks whence Mr. Brindley
brings the Imperial stone which the Romans prized for purposes of
decoration.
The range is then hollow-backed, until in latitude 240,
the traveller climbs the lofty porphyry peaks of Hullus, and, seated on
the edge of a wall, sheer 1,500 feet, looks over a hundred miles of sea
and mountain,
Between
these points, and equally between Hullus and Elba, to the south, the
hills are honeycombed with gold mines, and scarified by topaz workings
: the last are still in progress.
But
the most interesting part of the range is that in which are found the
Emerald mines of Sikait and of Jebel Zabbara, the latter word possibly
a corruption of Smaragdus.
There
are two main Emerald mining centres. That of Sikait, approached from
the sea by the Wadi Jamal, is the largest and most extensive. Here are
very ancient rock temples. The priests of old reaped a rich harvest
from the superstition of the miners.
Of
a later date than these rock temples, is a good masonry temple,
admirably proportioned, roofed in part with great slabs of shining
schist, and imposingly placed on a spur of rock running into the Sikait
valley. Here are the ruins of a well-built town, and along the valley
and in all the hills are some hundreds of shafts of varying depth. The
hills, some 600 or 700 feet in relative height, are mainly formed of a
soft talcose schist veined with quartz and consolidated by contorted
beds of a brown brittle metamorphic rock.
