(5.) Insects are so numerous in some parts of the land as almost to be a plague. They include the common
fly and mosquito; the bee, wasp, and hornet; great numbers of horse-flies ; many species of butterflies ; ants, spiders, grasshoppers, beetles, earwigs, and the beautiful glowworm and firefly. The most formidable of the insects which infest Palestine is the locust. Some few are seen every year, but great flights are fortunately rare. One such occurred in the summer of 1853 which nearly desolated Eastern Syria, In many places they completely covered the ground ; and for several days the air was so filled with them that the light of the sun was obscured as if by a mist. See each of the above- named animals in its alphabetical place.
Writers on the zoology of Palestine, or rather on Biblical zoology, are numerous. The following are the most important: Bochart, IJierozoicon, ed. Kosenmliller, 1793-1790; Hasselquist, Travels; Russell, .V((/. IJist. of A leppo ; Description de VEijypte, tom. xx-xxii ; Schu- bert, Reise; Kit to. Physical Hist, of Palestine ; Tris- tram, Nat. Hist, of the Bible; Wood, Bible Animals, See Zoology.
VI n. Geology. — Although several eminent geologists have passed through Palestine, we have as yet no full scientific delineation — not even a satisfactorj^ outline — of its geology. (See the brief sketch in Tristram's Nat, Hist, of the Bible, ch. ii.) The country ought in many respects to be the most interesting in the world to the geologist. It possesses some unique features. It bears marks of tremendous volcanic convulsions, extending over a vast period. Its wonderful history has been con- siderably affected by these agencies.
The general geological formation of Palestine is sim- ple. The basis of the country — the great body of its hills and plains — is Jura limestone, the same which extends over Lebanon, the desert of Arabia, and the pla- teau southward to the mountains of Sinai. Russegger says it may " be classed with the Upper Jura formation, the oolite, and the Jura dolomite." The rock is not uni- form in character, composition, or color. Most of it is compact, regularly stratified, of a dark cream or gray color, and abounding in fossils. As a general rule it be- comes softer towards the south. At Bethel are "large masses of blue limestone Avith shells," and on the sides of Gerizim " is nummulitic limestone ; in some parts the rocks had been in a liquid state, for one kind had over- flowed and encased the other" (Poole, in Journal of R. G. S. xxvi, 56). Aroimd Jerusalem dolomite prevails. The ancient buildings of the city appear to have been chiefly constructed of it. It is veined with red and white like marble, compact, partially crystallized, and takes a high polish. Traces of an upper cretaceous formation of a more recent period are visible over the whole mountains. In many places the action of the atmosphere and the washing of winter rains have strip- ped it from the firmer strata. It was filled with masses and nodules of flint; and these are now strewn over the surface where the soft chalk, in which they were orig- inally embedded, has entirely disappeared. Between Nabulus and Samaria the ground is covered with flints (Poole, p. 57) ; they abound in the wilderness of .Judaja. On the road from Bethany to Jericho, Poole says, " white nodules with black flint in the centre were thickly strewed about" {ibid.). In some places less ex- posed the upper crust remains; and thin layers of sand- stone, soft and friable, alternate occasionally with the chalk {ibid.). Towards the borders of the Dead Sea some important changes are observed in the strata. Of the mountain of Neby Miisa, Poole says, " The soil smelt very strong of sulphur, and I got specimens of limestone of an oolitic structure, also of a seam of bitu- minous and calcareous limestone, with pictcns about six inches thick" (p. 58), On the northern shore of the Dead Sea he got a specimen of bituminous stone. In the mountain along the south-west coast, "the chalk showed in several places overlaid by limestone," prob- ably owing to the tilting of the strata, or some other volcanic agency. In Eastern P.alestine the limestone is found in Hermon, and throughout Gilead and Moab;
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but at Kerak it gives place to the ruddy sandstone strata wliich constitute the mountains of Edom, and which also appear beneath the limestone along the east- ern shore of the Dead Sea. This eastern region has not been visited b\' any practical geologist, and tlie notices of it are brief and unsatisfactory.
This field of limestone, which thus extends over all Palestine, has been interrupted and broken in several places, and in a very remarkable manner, by volcanic agency — an agency, however, which operated at a very remote geological period. In Eastern Palestine lava ejected from the earth in a state of fusion has flowed over the limestone, covering the whole area of the king- dom of Bashan. The centre of eruption appears to have been in Jebel Hauran, at the now extinct craters Tell Abu Tumeis and Kuleib. From these two craters lava streams flowed westward to the Lejah; and the Lejah itself is filled with smaller craters. The little conical and cup-shaped tells which stud the surface of Hauriin were all at one time active volcanoes. The basalt thus emitted from numerous openings spread over the whole region, forming the lofty peaks of Jebel Hauran, and sweeping across the plain to the Jordan, Neither the breadth nor the exact limits of this lava-field are yet known. On the north-west it runs up the sides of Jebel el-Heish ; on the north it is bounded by the river Awaj (Pharpar), which separates it from the limestone in the plain of Damascus. On the south it runs to the banks of the Yarmuk, and in places across the ravine to North- cm Gilead. The Lejah is geologically the most re- markable province in Palestine. The hard black rock covers the entire surface to a depth of from thirty to one hundred feet — now stretching out in broad wavy reaches, divided by fissures of great depth, now thrown up in vast heaps of jagged fragments, now partially crystallized, and extending in long ridges like the Gi- ant's Causeway, The rock is very hard, gives a metal- lic soinid when struck, and is filled with air-bubbles. Spherical boulders of the same material are strewn over portions of the western declivity of the plain (Porter, Damascus, ii, 241 sq. ; Wetzstein, Reisehericht iiber Hau- ran, p. 27 sq. ; Wilson, Lands of the Bible, ii, 318 sq. ; Burckhardt, Travels, p. Ill sq.).