Page 344 - PERSIAN 1 1873_1879 Admin Report1_Neat

90 ADMINISTRATION REPORT OF TIIK PERSIAN GULF POLITICAL RESIDENCY
Part V.
MEDICAL TOPOGRAPHY OK MUSCAT BY SURGEON A. S. G. JAYAKAR.
Situated at the foot of an almost circular range of hills, Muscat
presents a picturesque appearance from the sea. The hills which rise and
fall in different places, and vary in height from 100 to 500 feet, are
crowned at important joints with small circular and square towers,
which, together with the two forts on either side of the town with their
imjxising asjjeet, add not a little to the beauty of the picture. Oman, of
which Muscat is the modern capital, and which extends from lias
Mcsandum to Itas-al-lludd, is principally a maritime province present­
ing an extensive tract of seaTcoast with several little indentitions serving
as harbours. Of these, Muscat, which occupies almost a central position,
is the most important one, both politically and physically.
Geology.—Mr. II. J. Carter, than whom nobody has better studied
the geology of the south-east coast of Arabia, has so ably and well
descril>cd the geology of Muscat and the surrounding country in his
geological papers on Western India, and other papers contributed to the
Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, that it will not be
necessary for me to do more than glance at the composition and struc­
ture of the rocks, surface soil and subsoil, in their relation to climate
and to the influence they exert in the causation of disease.
The rocks which surround Muscat on all sides but the small portion
exposed to the sea, and which form as it were a high wall round the
town, present a branched appearance, the ramifications in two places being
so marked and prolonged as to give an appearance of the whole valley
l**ing divided into three minor ones. One of them is occupied by the walled
town, the one to the south leads to Sadal), and the one to the south-west
contains patches of fertile ground and the wells which supply water to
the town. The shape of these rocks is mostly conical, and their elevation
varies from 100 to 500 feet. Mr. Carter considers them to have an igne­
ous origin, and to belong to the nummulitic series. They are composed
principally of a dark brown coloured serpentine, everywhere bounded
and overeapped with a yellow limestone formation. Mr. Carter has thus
summed up his description of this limestone formation—
“That the limestone formation, limiting the group of igneous
rocks at Muscat, both north and south, commences (from below upwards)
with a deposit of the same kind of pebbles lying in both places on the
fundamental rock of the locality, passing into a sandy grit, then into
a silico-calcareous deposit, then presenting the remains of marine ani­
mals, these increasing in number with the calcareous material; the
increasing purity of the limestone interrupted in each instance, by
a pink coloured deposit, that at Ras Ghissa (south of Muscat) chiefly
consisting of the remains of small foraminifera, and that of the form**
tion at llerzit (north of Muscat) of a thin series of gypseous, marly#
and arenaceous strata; then a compact yellowish or fawn-coloured lime­
stone (presenting a variety of shells and corals) terminating the sene*
at both places, and almost entirely composed of the accumulated remain*
of the polythalmous animal*/1
Thi* chain of mountain* about fourteen miles from Muscat curyej
inward* and leaves a large tract of low sandy plain called Batna, which