United Arab Emirates A New Perspective Paula Vine Ibrahim Al Abed

United Arab Emirates A New Perspective Paula Vine Ibrahim Al Abed
United Arab Emirates A New Perspective Paula Vine Ibrahim Al Abed
United Arab Emirates A New Perspective Paula Vine Ibrahim Al Abed

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3. UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
a new perspective

4. UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
a new perspective
Edited by
IBRAHIM AL ABED
PETER HELLYER

5. First published as Perspectives on the United Arab Emirates 1997, edited by Edmund Ghareeb and
Ibrahim Al Abed. (ISBN 1-900724-04-9)
This edition, with four new chapters and eleven original chapters revised and updated, published as
United Arab Emirates: A New Perspective,2001.
Text copyright © 1997, 2001 contributing authors/Trident Press Ltd
Layout and design © 1997, 2001 Trident Press Ltd
Editors: Ibrahim Al Abed, Peter Hellyer
Editorial assistant: Gabrielle Warnock
Production editor: Paula Vine
Typesetting: Johan Hofsteenge
Cover design: Jane Stark
Printed at Bookcraft, UK
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, digitising,
recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Trident Press Ltd.
Published with the cooperation of the Ministry of Information and Culture, PO Box 17, Abu Dhabi,
United Arab Emirates.
The views expressed by the contributing authors are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect
the opinions of the publishers or the UAE Government.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
ACIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Trident Press Ltd, Empire House,
175 Piccadilly, London W1V 0TB
Tel: [phone]; Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www. tridentpress.com
ISBN 1-900724-47-2

6. 5
Contents
Introduction 6
Evolution of the Emirates’ Land Surface: an Introduction 9
Kenneth W. Glennie
Before the Emirates: an Archaeological and Historical 28
Account of Developments in the Region ca 5000 BC to 676 AD
Daniel T. Potts
The Coming of Islam and the Islamic Period in the UAE 70
Geoffrey R. King
The Tribal Society of the UAE and its Traditional Economy 98
Frauke Heard-Bey
The Beginning of the Post-Imperial Era for the Trucial States: 117
From World War I to the 1960s
Frauke Heard-Bey
The Historical Background and Constitutional Basis to the Federation121
Ibrahim Al Abed
Formation and Evolution of the Federation and its Institutions 145
Malcolm C. Peck
Evolution of UAE Foreign Policy 161
Peter Hellyer
Dimensions of the UAE–Iran Dispute over Three Islands 179
Mohamed Al Roken
Evolution and Performance of the UAE Economy 202
1972–1998
Ali Tawfik Al Sadik
Oil and Gas in the UAE 231
Gerald Butt
Economic Development in the UAE 249
Mohamed Shihab
Industrialization in the UAE 260
Shihab M. Ghanem
Environmental Development and Protection in the UAE 277
Simon Aspinall
Poetry in the UAE 305
Shihab M. Ghanem
Author Profiles 312
Index 316

7. Introduction
At the end of 2001, the United Arab Emirates celebrates the completion of its first 30 years
as an independent federal state. Over the period since its formal creation on 2 December 1971,
the country has witnessed dramatic changes as the revenues from its oil and gas production
have been put to good use in the building of a modern infrastructure, while its population has
grown by over ten fold.
That process of change has taken place against a backdrop of social stability and political
continuity that is all the more remarkable because of the upheavals and conflicts that have
affected other parts of the Arabian Gulf region.
Prior to the establishment of the UAE, few outside the region knew much of the seven
emirates of which it is comprised, and fewer still had visited the area. Although oil production
and export had commenced a few years earlier, the process of modern development had still
to get properly under way. Many observers felt, indeed, that the new state had little chance
of surviving as a viable entity.
Yet, 30 years later, the United Arab Emirates is the longest surviving successful experiment
in federation anywhere in the Arab world, and has matured to become a country which not
only offers its population a modern lifestyle but also is widely recognized as having a significant
role to play within the global community of nations.
Parallel with the development that has taken place since 1971, there has been an explosion
in academic research on the country, as scholars both from within the UAE and abroad have
studied a wide range of aspects of the state, including not only its recent history and development,
but also its past and the nature of country itself.
This book brings together a collection of papers by leading scholars and is designed to
provide a broad introduction to the UAE, its origins, environment, people and development.
It seeks, thereby, to provide an outline of the country and, for those eager to learn more, to
offer a starting point for further reading and research.
An earlier collection of papers, entitled Perspectives on the United Arab Emirates , was
published in early 1997, to coincide with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the state. Since then,
much has happened, not only in terms of the development of the country, but also in terms of
research. While some chapters from that book are included in the present volume, several
new chapters have been written, on foreign policy, industrialization, oil and gas, the environment
and poetry, and other chapters have been extensively rewritten and updated to incorporate the
results of new research as well as recent developments. This second collection of papers, with
a new title, seeks to present, therefore, an overview of the country at the beginning of the
twenty-first century.
6
U
NITEDARABEMIRATES: A NEWPERSPECTIVE

8. 7
I
NTRODUCTION
The emergence of the landscape of the country is well described by Kenneth Glennie, who
has undertaken extensive research into the geology of the Emirates, including the formation
of the oil and gas bearing rock strata which today provide the major source of national
revenues. He also examines the impact of global changes in climate and in the moving of the
world's continental plates to explain how the country was formed.
The origins of the people of the Emirates are discussed in two chapters by Daniel Potts and
Geoffrey King, who trace the prehistory and history of the UAE from the dawn of human
settlement in the country around 7500 years ago. Through their own research, as well as that
by other archaeologists and historians, it is now plain that, although the UAE may be a small
country with an unfavourable climate, it has played a significant role in the evolution of
civilization in the region for many thousands of years.
Frauke Heard Bey provides two chapters on the traditional lifestyle of the Emirati people,
including the important tribal structure, and on the history of the twentieth century evolution
from a collection of disparate sheikhdoms on the periphery of the British Empire into the
federation of today.
The nature of the federation itself, and the way in which a successful sharing of authority
between the federal government and those of the individual emirates has emerged, is examined
by Ibrahim Al Abed, who provides an authoritative background to the discussions that led up
to the formation of the federation and to the adoption of the national constitution.
The circumstances under which the federation was formed and the institutions of the
federation are also discussed by Malcolm Peck, who studies the operation of those institutions,
and also reviews the way in which modern governmental structures have been able to co-
exist with the traditional, and still relevant, forms of local and tribal authority.
The way in which the country has earned itself respect in the global arena is analysed in a
chapter on foreign policy by Peter Hellyer, who reviews the basic elements of the country's
foreign policy and the way in which it has evolved over the three decades since the formation
of the federation, moving from a focus on purely regional issues to a more global approach.
Asecond chapter on foreign policy issues, by Mohammed Al Roken, examines the
dispute with Iran over the three UAE islands of Abu Musa and Greater and Lesser Tunb,
occupied by Iran since just before the federation was established. This chapter reviews the
historical status of the islands and legal issues arising out of the Iranian occupation, going
on to record the attempts made by the United Arab Emirates to achieve a peaceful resolution
to the dispute.
Turning back to internal affairs, and, in particular, the modern development of the country,
Ali Al Sadik investigates the process of economic development in the oil era, providing a
useful array of statistics that show the contrasting growth of the oil and non oil sectors in the
UAE Gross Domestic Product. He also deals with the economic aspects of the dependence
upon a largely expatriate labour force and with the widely recognized need for a further diversi-
fication of the national economy.
The oil and gas industry itself is examined by Gerald Butt, who traces its evolution from
the early days of exploration in the 1950s to the major role it plays today as a source of revenues
and of employment for the people of the Emirates. Without these revenues, the development
of the UAE could not have taken place in the same way, and this chapter shows clearly how
the country's hydrocarbon reserves have provided the fuel for growth.

9. 8
U
NITEDARABEMIRATES: A NEWPERSPECTIVE
Mohammed Shihab enumerates and analyses the factors that have led to the socio-economic
transformation of the country since 1971. He notes, inter alia, that the accessibility to revenues
from the oil and gas industry has permitted the UAE to compress decades of economic growth
into a relatively short period.
That has been made possible in part by the way in which the UAE has developed its
industrial sector, first as a downstream sector of the oil and gas industry, and then, increasingly,
in the non-oil sector. The achievements and problems of this process are scrutinized by
Shihab M. Ghanem.
Simon Aspinall looks at the wildlife and environment of the Emirates, providing data to
challenge the common misconception that deserts have little to offer in the way of Nature,
and examining the way in which conservation of wildlife and the environment has become a
key priority of Government policy over the course of the last three decades.
Finally, taking a look at an aspect of the cultural development of the country, Shihab M.
Ghanem, himself a prominent local poet, traces the evolution of the country's poets and poetry.
In the nature of books such as this, it is impossible to provide an exhaustive review of the
culture, history, heritage, development and landscape of the United Arab Emirates. Moreover,
the process of scholarly study into a wide range of topics is continuing to produce valuable
new data. It is our hope, however, that this new collection of papers will not only provide a
useful introduction to the United Arab Emirates, but will also prompt further study. Through
such a process, not only can researchers, and others, learn more about the country, but also
citizens and residents of the UAE can come to know the country better. That, in turn, will be
of benefit for the process of further development.
The Editors

10. Evolution of The Emirates’Land Surface:
an Introduction
K.W. Glennie
Introduction
With the exception of the Omani territory in the north-eastern Ru’us al-Jibal (Musandam
peninsula) and north-central Oman Mountains, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) occupies a
broad strip of land flanking the southern shores of the Arabian Gulf between the Qatar peninsula
and the Gulf of Oman. Much of that land consists of relatively low-lying rolling dunes and
interdune areas forming the north-eastern limit of the Rub al-Khali (Empty Quarter of Saudi
Arabia), which reach 150 m above sea level in the region to the north of Al Liwa. In the
northern emirates, the dunes extend up to the Oman Mountains. To the south-east, however,
the eastern limit of the dunes coincides approximately with the Oman border, where they
overlie the deflated (wind eroded) surface of sub-horizontal fluvial sediments that had earlier
been transported westward from the mountains (Fig. 1).
Ageneral lack of rainfall ensures that most of Arabia is a desert. Summer temperatures can
approach 50°C on the Gulf coast of the Emirates, where relative humidity averages between
50 and 60 per cent. Inland, however, temperatures can exceed 50°C and relative humidity be
less than 20 per cent (United Arab Emirates University). Over the western lowlands of the
Emirates, annual rainfall is mostly less than 40 mm. In Al Ain the mean annual rainfall is
96 mm and yet the potential yearly evaporation is over 3000 mm (op.cit.Plate 44). With a
high rate of evaporation and an annual rainfall over the Oman Mountains that rarely reaches
200 mm, this highland area, which has elevations within the Emirates of over 1500 m, must
also be classified as desert; its desert status is emphasized by its surface of almost continuous
barren rock and a sparse vegetation confined mostly to the floors of wadis.
With the exception of the south-western Ru’us al-Jibal, the rocks exposed within the
mountains of the Emirates differ markedly from those that contain deeply buried oil and gas
fields in the west and beneath the southern Gulf. Also, the extensive plains of fluvial sediments
that flank the mountains are evidence of a former, much wetter, climate than is indicated by
the younger dune sands and salt-covered sabkhas that overlie their extremities. The history
of deposition and deformation of these rock units, the much more recent evidence of rapid
changes in climate from very humid to hyper-arid, together with the geological processes that
culminated in today’s desert surface, form the topic of the following pages.
9

11. Mountain and Subsurface Geological Framework
The subsurface
The oldest exposed rocks underlie the whole of the Emirates except the Oman Mountains and
immediate flank areas; they are seen at only two localities on the mainland, Jebel Ali south-
west of Dubai and Jebel Dhanna in the western part of Abu Dhabi, but also occur on several
offshore islands (e.g. Sir Bani Yas, Sir Abu Nu’air: Fig. 1). These jebels and islands are dome-
shaped at the surface and are cored by Hormuz Salt (named after similar salt on Hormuz Island
in the Straits of Hormuz). The salt was deposited almost 600 million years ago on the floor
of an almost enclosed sea when evaporation resulted in its water becoming super-saturated
with respect tohalite(common salt) (see also Glennie 1987: Fig. 12a). About 20 million years
before the present (20 Ma BP), the Red Sea was also floored by salt in a similar way. Salt can
flow and, unlike the sedimentary rocks that overlie it, cannot be compacted with increased
depth of burial. For this reason, the salt is now less dense than most of its overburden and,
using any vertical weakness, penetrates upward (diapirism) through the overlying rock
sequence to form salt domes at the surface. In the south-eastern Gulf, the source of the diapiric
Hormuz salt now lies at a depth of some 10 km (Beydoun 1991). Hydrocarbon source rocks
of similar age occur in Oman, and may be present in the Gulf area, but because of deep burial
10
U
NITEDARABEMIRATES: A NEWPERSPECTIVE
RED SEA
ARABIA
RUB AL-KHALI
GULF OF ADEN
ARABIAN SEA
UAE
ARABIAN GULF
GULF OF
OMAN
QATA R
SAUDI
ARABIA
NO
DATA
0 100km
SABKHA
MATTI
DUNE SYSTEMS
J
BARAKAH
J.DHANNA
SIR BANI YAS
DALMA
ABU AL ABYAD
ABU DHABI
ARABIAN GULF
SIR BU N'IER
SABKHAS
J
FA I YA H
SHARJAH
RAS AL-KHAIMAH
LIWA
ALL
FA NS
SHARJAH
ALLUVIAL FAN S
AL AIN
ALLUVIAL FANS
DUBAI
ZAGROS
MTNS
COASTAL
SILA
RUUS AL JIBAL
ALLUVIAL
FANS
TERTIARY & LATEST CRETAC EOUS
LIMESTONE
SEMAIL OPHIOLITES
RUUS AL JIBAL
PAR-AUTOCHTHON
HAWASINA
AUTOCHTHON
BAYNUNAH
BNH
J
HAFIT
DUNES & INLAND SABKHA
Fig. 1. Simplified geological map of the United Arab Emirates. Inset diagram indicates some of the
complex geometrical relationships between rock units of the mountains and flanking areas.
See also Table 1.

12. must long since have generated their oil and gas. Several of the offshore salt domes are associated
with the occurrence of oil and gas where reservoir rocks have been deformed by the rising
salt to create atrap(e.g. Umm Shaif, Zakum).
Arabia, as part of the megacontinent Gondwana, was located south of the Equator throughout
the Palaeozoic era (Table 1). Initially it was geometrically ‘up-side-down’ (Fig. 2) relative to
the poles as Gondwana moved south across the south pole (and came up the other side the
‘right-way up’) under the influence ofplate-tectonicprocesses (see below). Because Arabia’s
southern traverse was undertaken largely in temperate latitudes, most of the Palaeozoic rocks
comprise sandstones and shales, a small exposure of which occurs in Jebel Rann, south-west
of Dibba. Hydrocarbon source rocks of Silurian age are known in both Oman and Saudi Arabia,
and might be viable for the generation of oil also in western Abu Dhabi.
11
E
VOLUTION OFTHEEMIRATES’LANDSURFACE: ANINTRODUCTION
In complete contrast, between the Late Permian (about 260 Ma BP) and Late Miocene (part
of Neogene on Table 1; about 5–10 Ma BP), Arabia slowly drifted northwards across the Tropics, where warm, shallow, tropical seas were ideal for the growth of corals and other
shallow-marine creatures with calcareous shells; their accumulation after death led to the formation of varieties oflimestone.Depending partly on a water depth that varied with time,
the sea floor was intermittently covered by a variety of rocks that included organic-rich muds, mostly of Jurassic and Cretaceous age, but also some Triassic formations, which later became the source of hydrocarbons (oil and gas) now stored in porous carbonate rocks (limestones anddolomites)(see Table 1). Reservoir rocks range in age from the Late Permian (Khuff
Formation) to the Jurassic, where the Arab reservoirs are important, and Cretaceous (Shuaiba, Mauddud and Mishrif), to the Lower Tertiary (Pabdeh Formation). Seals, preventing the relatively buoyant hydrocarbons from escaping to the sea floor, cap the reservoirs. The best of these are evaporites such asgypsum and anhydrite inter-bedded with the different Arab
reservoir horizons, or the overlying latest Jurassic Hith Formation (Al Silwadi et al. 1996). These seals were probably deposited on extensive coastalsabkhas similar to those now found
along the shore and on the offshore islands of Abu Dhabi (Alsharhan & Whittle 1995).
For source rocks to becomematureand give up their oil, they need to be buried to a depth
where the temperature approaches that of boiling water (about 3 km, depending on the local temperature gradient through the underlying rock sequence). At a depth of around 4 km, it
starts to become mature for gas production but post-mature for the generation of oil, and by
Fig. 2. Distribution of continental plates
during the early Palaeozoic. Arabia
then formed part of a megacontinent
called Gondwana, which included
Australia, Antarctica, India, Africa
and South America. Gondwana
was separated from eastern Asia by
an ancient ocean called Tethys
(adapted from Smith et al., 1981).
N
60°N
30°N
EQUATOR
30°S
60°S
N. AMERICA
SCOTLAND
ENGLAND
E
ASIA
ARABIA
AFRICA
INDIA
ANTARTICA
AUSTRALIA
S
AMERICA

13. 6 km, the temperature is so high (around 180°C) that even gas generation ceases (post-mature
for gas). Newly generated oil is squeezed out of its source bed and migrates (usually upward)
into a porous reservoir rock (e.g. sandstone, dolomite). The oil or gas can be retained in the
reservoir rock only if it is kept in by an impervious cap rockor seal, and the reservoir/seal
couplet forms a trap. Structural deformation of the reservoir/seal couplets, preventing the
formation of traps, can occur in a variety of ways; these can include fault movement at
basement level, which affects all overlying rocks, differential compaction of underlying sands
and shales and, most prominently in the southern Gulf area, diapiric uplift of the Eo-Cambrian
12
U
NITEDARABEMIRATES: A NEWPERSPECTIVE
AGE
Ma
PERIOD
QUATERNARY
NEOGENE
PALEOGENE
CENO-
ZOIC
MESOZOIC
CRETACEOUS
FARS
PABDEH
ARUMA
WASIA
THAMAMA
JURASSIC
TRIASSIC
SAHTAN
AKHDAR
HSG
PLATFORM AREA
GROUP FORMATION
PABDEH (G)
LAFFAN (S)
MISHRIF (O)
MAUDDUD (O)
SHUAIBA (S/O)
ARAB (O)
DIYAB (S)
ARAEJ (O)
MARRAT (O)
JILH (S)
KHUFF (G)
PERMIAN
CARBONIFEROUS
DEVONIAN
SILURIAN
ORDOVICIAN
CAMBRIAN
PALAEOZOIC PRECAMBRIAN
2
65
145
208
251
290
360
410
440
500
540
700
800
MAJOR HIATUS
?
HORMUZ SALT
?
HORMUZ SALT
CRYSTALLINE
BASEMENT
FIRST FORMED
AROUND 950 Ma B.P.
1
MUSANDAM PENINSULA
2
(PARAUTOCHTHONOUS)
ERODED/
NOT DEPOSITED
MUSANDAM
ELPHINSTONE
RUUS AL JIBAL
THRUST OVER
ARUMA & HAWASINA
OMAN MOUNTAINS
3
(ALLOCHTHONOUS)
SEMAIL NAPPE
HAWASINA
SUMEINI
HAMRAT D URU
AL ARIDH
KAWR
UMAR
NOTES:
1. Autochthonous rock units - Geological groups in L.H.
column. R.H. column lists some important source rocks
(S) and oil- (O) & gas- (G) bearing formations. Note
Basal Cambrian Hormuz Salt.
2. Parautochthonous rocks of Musandam Peninsula are
similar to those of the platform area but have been thrust
short distance over Aruma and Hawasina covering deeper
platform rocks, probably at end of Paleogene.
3. South of the Musandam Peninsula, the Hawasina
comprises an imbricate sequence of continental slope
(Sumeini) and ocean floor sediments (Hamrat Duru to
Umar groups). They are overlain by the Semail Nappe
comprising former oceanic crust. Obduction of both
Hawasina & Semail took place during time span of
deposition of the Aruma Group on the Arabian Platform.
indicates sense of thrusting
HSG = Hajar Supergroup
Table 1. Rock units of the United Arab Emirates. Asimplified outline emphasizing differences between
the Oman Mountains and subsurface of the desert plains. Some important oil and gas horizons within
the autochthonous Hajar Super Group of the Arabian Platform are shown (R= reservoir rock; S= source
rock and C= cap rock or seal). Note that the Hawasina and Semail Nappes were obducted onto the
Arabian continental margin during the Late Cretaceous.

14. Hormuz salt and its sideways withdrawal from the deep salt horizon to feed that diapirism
(Fig. 3). A simple outline of the maturation and migration of hydrocarbons from source rock
to reservoir and trap is given in Glennie (1995). For a general discussion of Arabian petroleum
geology, see Beydoun (1991) and more specifically for the Emirates, Alsharhan (1989).
The Oman Mountains
The origin of the subsurface rocks that underlie the greater part of the Emirates has been told
in relatively simple terms, but that of the mountains is much more complex and its interpre-
tation is not without controversy (Robertson and Searle 1990; Glennie 1995). Its presentation
thus requires more space.
The creation of the Oman Mountains is closely connected with the plate-tectonic processes
mentioned above. This hypothesis is based on two observations:
•The continents are composed of relatively thick (20–70 km), light and buoyant crust
(continental crust), while the oceans are floored by a thinner (4–10 km), denser crust (oceanic
crust); both ‘float’ on a slightly plasticmantlethat is capable of flowing as a slow-moving
convection current under the influence of radioactive heat generated in the core of the Earth.
•New oceanic crust is created from molten magma filling tension gashes within existing
crust and extruded as lava on the ocean floor at mid-ocean ridges,while a similar amount
of older crust is carried back down into the Earth’s mantle at arcuate oceanic trenches
(subduction zones); thus the Earth’s circumference remains more or less constant as the
continents and adjacent oceanic crust move away from the ‘spreading’ oceanic ridges and
converge elsewhere at subduction trenches.
Perhaps the clearest example of the above processes is seen today on either side of the Americas.
In the Atlantic Ocean, depending on location, the Americas have been moving away from Europe
and Africa at an average rate of about 5 cm a year for the past 60 to 100 million years (60–100
Ma) or more, the axis of spreading being the submarine Mid Atlantic Ridge; while at the western
margin of South America, oceanic crust of the Pacific Plate is being subducted beneath the Andes
(see e.g. Glennie 1992, 1995).
For much of the Palaeozoic era, Gondwana was separated from Asia by a major ocean
known as Tethys (Fig. 2). In the Late Permian, some 260 or 270 Ma BP, a continental block
comprising Anatolia, Central Iran, Helmand (south Afghanistan) and perhaps Tibet, separated
from the Arabian-Indian margin of Gondwana to form a microcontinent (Glennie 1995: Fig. 16).
13
E
VOLUTION OFTHEEMIRATES’LANDSURFACE: ANINTRODUCTION
10 km
0 100 km
Haw
as
in
a
WSW
SILA
Salt Dome
SIR BANI YAS
Pre-Cambrian Basement
Palaeozoic
Mesozoic Hajar Super Group
CENOZOIC
Oman Mountains
DHAIDJ.ALI
Aruma
ENE
Gulf of
Oman
Hormuz Salt
Semail
Fig. 3. Schematic W-E geological cross-section through the United Arab Emirates. Deformation leading
to the creation of hydrocarbon traps within the Hajar Super Group resulted from movements associated
with basement faults and the Hormuz salt (small diapir at J. Ali not shown) generally too small to show
at scale of section. The nappes of the Oman Mountains were obducted when the eastern margin of Arabia
and adjacent ocean floor attempted to underthrust oceanic crust now represented by the Semail Nappe.

15. The intervening area became floored by a relatively narrow spreading ocean called Neo-Tethys
1 (sequentially, there were two), which probably was rather like the modern Red Sea. Although
there are some doubts about the oceanic nature of its underlying crust (it may have been
‘thinned’ and volcanically ruptured continental crust (Béchennec et al. 1988, 1990)), Neo-
Tethys 1 seems to have had a spreading life of probably less than 50 Ma, for, in the Late
Triassic, the newly formed microcontinent was itself split into two by a new axis of spreading
and the creation of another ocean (Neo-Tethys 2: Fig. 4) that was to exist for over 100 Ma.
Neo-Tethys 1 ceased to spread from then on. The southward narrowing microcontinent between
the two oceanic areas, Neo-Tethys 1 and 2, comprised Anatolia, the Sirjan-Sanandaj zone of
Iran (Glennie et al. 1990; Glennie 1995), and possibly a number of mountain-size ‘fragments’
of shallow-marine limestone and marble within the Hawasina Series referred to as ‘Exotics’
(Al-Aridh and Kawr groups of Table 1); exotic because these whitish marbles look out of
place in their surroundings of the much darker rocks of the adjacentSemail Nappe (former
oceanic crust) and the deep-water sediments (limestone and red-brownchert;see below) of
the Hawasina Series.
The Hawasina comprises sequences that vary in thickness from about 1000 to 200 m and
range in age from the Triassic (locally mid Permian) to the mid Cretaceous. The thinner and,
more particularly, the uppermost parts of the sequences are commonly distorted and tightly
folded. Furthermore, a large part, or even the total sequence, is commonly repeated in an
imbricate fashion (like a row of books on a shelf, all leaning in one direction) as they partly
overlie each other. A simplified picture of sedimentation on the ocean floor can be deduced
by reconstructing the imbricate pile back into their original positions relative to each other
(Glennie et al. 1973, 1974, 1995 Fig.8).
When Neo-Tethys 1 formed, its floor was covered with sediments derived from the edge
of the Arabian continental shelf; at the continental shelf edge, shallow-marine organisms,
including calcareous grasses, thrived in well-oxygenated waters, and shells or, in the case of
the grasses, lime mud, accumulated when they died. The shells were partly fragmented by
wave action and also by burrowing organisms. The whole formed a metastable mass of
sediment that could be dislodged by the shock of an earthquake or even a violent storm. Such
dislodged sediment would slide down the continental slope and develop into a relatively high-
velocity flow called a turbidity current, which finally deposited its entrained sediment over
the lowercontinental rise and abyssal plain of the ocean as a bed called a turbidite.Turbidity
currents have been recorded in modern environments at speeds of up to 70 km/hour (Holmes
1978), and their momentum carries them far across the abyssal plain.
At depths greater than some 3000 to 4000 m, calcium carbonate is unstable. The fine calcareous
muds that settle out from suspension in the oceanic waters are especially susceptible to
replacement by silica to form reddish brown cherts (a rock rather like flint), which are charac-
terized by the siliceous framework of very small unicellular creatures called radiolaria (i.e.
they form radiolarian cherts). Turbidites and radiolarian cherts make up much of the Hawasina
sedimentary sequence. The volumetrically greater calcareous turbidites dominated deposition
closest to the Arabian continental shelf edge, while the much thinner red cherts were in the
deepest water farthest from the shelf edge (Glennie et al. 1973, 1974; Glennie 1995).
In complete contrast to the turbidites and cherts, the ‘Exotics’ form large blocks of white
shallow-marine limestone, commonly recrystallized to marble (a process that destroyed many
14
U
NITEDARABEMIRATES: A NEWPERSPECTIVE

16. of the fossils that may have been present initially). The ‘Exotics’ seem to have been derived
from the far side of Neo-Tethys 1 relative to the Arabian continental margin (Kawr Ridge on
Fig. 4). Most ‘Exotics’are underlain by an association of a red siltstone and pillow lavas formed
by extrusion of lava at the sea floor. At Jebel Rann, south-west of Dibba, however, ‘exotic’
limestone overlies Ordovician sandstone, which indicates the presence of continental crust.
These observations suggest that the ‘Exotics’ probably formed as the outcome of continental
break-up and the creation of a new intervening ocean. The largest known ‘Exotic’ in the
mountains is Jebel Kawr, in Oman, which is almost 1000 m thick and over 25 km across.
The Anatolia-Sirjan-Sanandaj microcontinent that separated Neo-Tethys 1 and 2 narrowed
southward (Fig. 4), and along much of the Oman coastline of Arabia was probably represented
by little more than the ‘Exotic’ Limestones (Kawr Ridge). As the Kawr Ridge had little or no
exposure above sea level, it generated no sediment by erosion other than carbonate fragments;
thus this part of Neo-Tethys 2 was deprived of sediment other than a rain of the finest clay-size
particles settling out of suspension in the oceanic waters and eventually forming radiolarian
chert (Umar Group, Table 1).
Sedimentation in the relatively narrow Neo-Tethys 1 took place from the Late Permian
to the mid Cretaceous, and, in Neo-Tethys 2, from the Late Triassic until the mid or Late
Cretaceous. As Neo-Tethys 2 continued to widen, so the Africa-Arabian and adjoined South
American portions of Gondwana moved to the west or south-west away from the Neo-
Tethyan axis of spreading. Sometime during the Early Cretaceous, however, Africa and
South America began to separate to create the intervening South Atlantic Ocean (Glennie
et al. 1990; Glennie 1995). South America continued to move to the west, but Afro-Arabia
had to reverse its sense of motion and move away from the South Atlantic spreading axis.
With Neo-Tethys 2 continuing to spread, very strong compressional stresses soon developed.
These were relieved by the creation of an easterly-dipping trench down which the oceanic
crust of first the western part of Neo-Tethys 2 and then Neo-Tethys 1 was subducted. During
that process, the sediments covering the floor of both Neo-Tethys 1 and 2 were scraped
off the down-going oceanic plate to form theaccretionary wedge of imbricate sequences
of the Hawasina mentioned above (Glennie et al. 1990; Glennie 1995).
Subduction zones are of two types (see Fig. 6 in Glennie 1995):
•Andean Type: oceanic crust at the eastern edge of the Pacific Plate is currently being
subducted beneath the Andes mountain range. As the sedimentary cover is scraped off the
down-going oceanic crust, the Andes are elevated a little more. The uppermost sediments
15
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VOLUTION OFTHEEMIRATES’LANDSURFACE: ANINTRODUCTION
ARABIAN
CONTINENTAL
SHELF
NEO-TETHYS
1
SANANDAJ-SIRJAN
ZONE
SEA
LEVEL
ACTIVE
MID-OCEAN
RIDGE
OCEANIC
CRUST
(VERY THIN COVER
OF SEDIMENTS)
KAWR
RIDGE
(CONTINENTAL
CRUST)
HAWASINA
SEDIMENTS
OF
NEO-TETHYS 1
THICKENS TO WEST
CONTINENTAL CRUST
SHALLOW
SEA
SW NE
NEO-TETHYS
2
Fig. 4. Block diagram to illustrate
the spatial relationships between the
Arabian continental margin, Neo-
Tethys 1 and 2, and the intervening
Sirjan-Sanandaj-Kawr microcon-
tinent during the Jurassic and Early
Cretaceous.

17. being subducted are considerably younger than the overlying rocks of the Andes mountains;
moisture associated with the descending plate lowers the melting point of rock and causes
volcanic activity (together with the intrusion at depth of granite) in the overlying Andes.
•Ocean-ocean subduction: the oceanic crust of Neo-Tethys 2, when initially subducted, was
possibly up to 100 Ma old and had therefore had enough time since its formation at a spreading
ridge to cool down. The old and cold crust was relatively dense, and preferred to descend
steeply rather than at a gentle angle; this, in turn, caused the axis of bending to roll back
away from the subduction trench, thereby creating crustal tension in a geological structure
that had developed initially because of crustal compression. Crustal tension inevitably leads
to volcanic activity and the creation of new oceanic crust; this new oceanic crust became
the Semail Nappe of the Oman Mountains (see Lippard et al. 1986).
Because the new axis of spreading developed behind the subduction trench, the newly created
oceanic crust is said to have resulted from back-arc spreading. It is noteworthy here that the
newly formed oceanic crust was younger than most of the ocean-floor sediments that were
being subducted nearby.
Subduction of the oceanic crust and the growth of anaccretionary wedge of ocean-floor
sediments beneath the future Semail Nappe began some 110 Ma BP (Lippard et al. 1986).
The difficulty of trying to ‘swallow’the thick ‘exotic limestones’down the subduction trench
can be imagined from the amount of recrystallization and fracturing that affected the
limestones; they were sheared from their mixed continental and ocean-margin substrate. When,
later, the even thicker continent margin of Arabia reached the subduction trench, it could
neither be sheared off nor ‘swallowed’; it became jammed within the upper part of the
subduction zone, and subduction ground to a halt.
The South Atlantic Ocean continued to widen, however, and the back-arc spreading axis
just east of the subduction trench was still active. Compressional stresses built up until another
subduction trench formed further to the east. In the Oman Mountains, the Late Cretaceous
timing of nappe emplacement (obduction) can be dated by the fossil content of the Aruma
Group sediments (Table 1) being deposited adjacent to the nappes being emplaced. In the
Inner Makran of Iran, the presence of volcanic bombs in slightly younger Late Cretaceous
marine sediments indicates that a new subduction process had already been in progress there
for a few million years (Glennie et al. 1990). The Makran subduction trench is still active
today, and has built an accretionary wedge of marine sediments that extends to the present
southern coastline of Iran east of the Straits of Hormuz.
When the new subduction trench formed in Iran, compressive stresses in the Oman Mountains
sector were removed, allowing the leading edge of the Arabian continent to rise isostatically (like
a piece of wood being released under water), causing the separation of what now became the
Semail Nappe from its formerly contiguous oceanic crust of back-arc type. This uplift caused
the accretionary wedge of Hawasina sediments, together with the Semail Nappe, to slide a little
further onto the essentially immovableautochthonous continental shelf sequence, the whole
process being known asobduction.At this time (end Cretaceous), the Hawasina and Semail did
not form a high mountain range, but rather an island chain, the flanks of which were covered by
Early Cenozoic shallow-marine limestones that extended westward across the rest of the Emirates.
Uplift into the present mountain range did not begin until about the end of the Paleogene
or early Neogene, possibly as a result of continental collision between Arabia and Iran
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18. associated with the opening of the Red Sea and perhaps of other plate movements including
that of India. As part of this event, the highland area of Ru’us al-Jibal (Fig. 1) was pushed
westward slightly and compressed along a series of reverse faults, and now at the mountain
edge locally overrides Paleogene strata in the subsurface (Fig. 3); other examples of the structural
style can be found in Boote et al. 1990 and Dunne et al. 1990. This compression is clearly
expressed by the steep western flank of the coastal mountain just north of Sha’am. East of
Ra’s al-Khaimah, in the Hagil W indowjust north of the exit of Wadi Bih, the shallow-marine
rocks of the Ru’us al-Jibal and Elphinstone groups can be seen to overlie units of the Hawasina
with a thrust contact. The amount of horizontal over-thrusting is believed to have been no
more than a few kilometres and does not extend south of Dibba.
The surface of Jebel Hafit, just south of Al Ain, consists of Lower Cenozoic limestones
and marls that have now been deformed into a sharp, steeply flanked anticline whose axis
plunges to both north and south. The time of its deformation is believed to have coincided
with uplift of the Oman mountains, possibly by reactivation of one of the underlying thrust
planes within the Hawasina. Further north, Jebel Faiyah forms a similar structure that has
been dissected sufficiently to expose underlying rocks of the Semail Nappe. Cenozoic
rocks are also exposed along the mountain edge to the east and north-east of Jebel Hafit
(e.g. Jebel Qamar).
Along the coast of Oman in the vicinity of Muscat, and to the south-east almost as far as Sur,
are a number of elevated horizontal wave-cut terraces, up to 150 m above present sea level, which
indicate that the Oman Mountains have continued to rise during the past few million years or so.
Asimilar terrace in the northern Emirates has been cut into the western edge of the southern
Ru’us al-Jibal, south of the exit of Wadi Bih (due east of Ra’s al-Khaimah). In contrast, the northern
extremity of the Oman Mountains is being depressed below sea level as its offshore continuation
across the Straits of Hormuz is subducted beneath the Makran coast. According to Vita Finzi
(1979), the northern tip of the Musandam peninsula is subsiding at the very rapid rate of about
6 mm per year.
The rate of horizontal closure between Arabia and Asia is not known. That it continues to
do so, even if relatively slowly, is attested by the many violent earthquakes experienced in
Iran as the outer edge of the Arabian Plate (north-east edge of the Zagros Mountains) grinds
against the adjacent Sanandaj-Sirjan Zone; geologists have aptly named this earthquake-prone
contact the Crush Zone.
Miocene Terrestrial Sediments of Western Abu Dhabi
At the time of continental collision between Arabia and Asia during the early Miocene (early
Neogene), shallow-marine sedimentation was replaced by terrestrial conditions over much of the
Gulf region. In western Abu Dhabi, the Shuwaihat Formation comprises deformed evaporitic
sediments that are replaced upwards by dune sands which, like those of today, were deposited
under the influence of a northern (shamal) wind; the sands are riddled with the moulds of plant
roots (Glennie and Evamy 1968), which indicate the former proximity of the water table at fairly
shallow depth. Among other places, such sediments are exposed on Shuwaihat island, at Jebel
Dhanna and south of Sila (Fig. 1).
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19. With an erosional interval representing several million years, the dune sands are overlain by
fluvial gravels and sands of the Baynuna Formation (Fig. 1), which contain a wide variety of
vertebrate fossils of both terrestrial and aquatic types: crocodile, turtle, hippopotamus, an early
type of elephant, buffalo and ostrich, as well as smaller mammals (Whybrow and Hill 1999).
The change from arid dune and sabkhato the more humid conditions needed for the hippopotamus
and crocodile to thrive requires a considerable change in climate, a change that seems to have
taken place repeatedly during the past million years or so. The erosional time gap between the
Shuwaihat and Baynuna formations is possibly the result of a considerable fall (100 m?) in
global sea level when Antarctica used that volume of water to form its thick cover of ice.
Quaternary Sediments of the Emirates
The influence of high latitude glaciations on Arabian deserts
During the past million years or more, one event has repeatedly affected global climate, including
that of tropical deserts. With a cyclicity of around 100 ka (100,000 years), the whole of
Scandinavia and the northern half of North America, including Greenland, suffered a repeated
slow build-up of an ice cover up to two or three kilometres thick, which then melted very
rapidly (Shackleton 1987; Boulton 1993); because global temperatures were lower during
glaciations, many highland areas became the sites of mountain glaciers, whereas the ice cap
over Antarctica, which had been a permanent feature of the southern hemisphere from at least
the Miocene onward, only expanded and contracted in size.
Apart from lowering global temperatures, these glaciations affected climate in two other ways:
•Because the ice caps became the centres of very large areas of high atmospheric pressure,
all other air-pressure belts around the globe were squeezed towards the low-pressure
equatorial area. With isobars much closer together than is the case today, global winds will
have been much stronger and more persistent than any we now experience.
•So much water went into building the ice caps that global sea level at the last glacial
maximum, about 20 ka BP, was some 120 or 130 m lower than today’s. Since the floor of
the Arabian Gulf is everywhere less than 120 m deep, during glacial maxima the exposed
floor of the Gulf would have been the site of sand dunes migrating southward and across
the Emirates into the Rub’ al-Khali under the influence of the northern (shamal)wind; the
only sign of water in the Gulf area would have been in the combined Tigris-Euphrates
river, which derived its water from the wetter Anatolian highlands and reached the open
sea south of the Straits of Hormuz.
The high-latitude glaciations took some 80 to 100 ka to reach their maximum extent; the last
then melted within little more than 10 ka to produce a global sea level similar to the present
one by about 6 ka BP; thus sea level rose at an average rate of about 1 cm per year but possibly
exceeded 4 cm/year for short periods (Boulton 1993). This flooding is thought to have been
the origin of the biblical story of ‘Noah’s Flood’, perhaps around 9 ka BP (Teller et al. 2000).
Noah is thought to have lived in an area now covered by the Arabian Gulf. Over the almost
flat floor of the Gulf, any continuous rise in sea level would have been noticed by the people
living there. Noah’s family possibly lived in the drier environment of a gentle rise to escape
the effects of a rainfall that was considerably higher than any experienced today. As sea level
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20. rose in the Gulf, Noah’s slightly elevated pasturage would have been cut off from the mainland
and then be seen to shrink in area, leading to the need for a barge or raft if he and his family
and flocks were to survive the encroaching sea; necessity is the mother of invention.
Many desert areas, including much of the Sahara, had a higher rainfall between about 10
and 6 ka BP. This induced the growth of much more vegetation, which fed abundant game,
leading to the term ‘Climatic Optimum’; since then, most topical deserts have become more
arid again (e.g. Petit-Maire 1994).
Flooding of the Gulf had a profound effect on the Emirates. Instead of sand dunes migrating
freely into the area from the north, the supply of wind-driven sand was progressively cut off
by the increasing extent of sea water. The wind continued to blow, however, so that in areas
close to the expanding sea, sand was deflated (removed by wind action) down to the level of
the water table, which was rising in concert with the rising sea level. The resulting moist
surface developed into sabkhas, which are described later.
Fluvial sediments
When there is sufficient rainfall, fluvial gravels and sands are transported down the mountain
sides and across the valley floors within the mountains; today, such rainwater reaches the sea
about once in every ten years in the northern emirates, but south of Jebel Faiyah it always dissipates
within the sand dunes that block the lower reaches of the wadis and never reaches the sea.
West of the mountains is a broad sheet of fluvial sands and gravels that spread for a consid-
erable distance beneath the present cover of dune sands. In south-east Oman, the same
spread of alluvial fans reaches as much as 200 km south of the mountains; in the north,
they extend beneath the floor of the Arabian Gulf. The time of deposition of some of the
younger gravels now exposed in incised wadi banks have been dated at around 30,000 and
70,000 thousand years before present (30 and 70 ka BP), while others, in Wadi Dhaid for
instance, coincided with the Climatic Optimum (Sanlaville 1992). The fans have been
subjected to repeated deflation, however, and near-surface sediment has been dated at over
400 ka, while the degree of alteration of some ophiolite-rich fluvial sediment suggests
deposition up to a million or more years ago. The extent of these sediments, and the size
of the pebbles and boulders found in them, indicate that at the time of their deposition there
was much more rainfall over the area than is experienced today. The surfaces of such alluvial
fans are exposed between some of the large linear dunes of the eastern emirates (Fig. 1).
Quaternary fluvial sediments are rarely exposed between the dune cover of most of the
western emirates. Along the western side of Sabkha Matti, however, at the western limit of
Abu Dhabi, another sequence of fluvial gravels is exposed at the surface. The attitude of the
bedding laminae indicates that there, an ancient river flowed towards the north or north-east.
The types of rock (e.g. limestone, volcanic lava) represented by the pebble content of the
gravels point, in this case, to a source in the south-western highlands of Saudi Arabia. The
time of their deposition has been dated at over 200 ka BP (Goodall 1995), which obviously
was another period of higher rainfall than now.
Sabkhas
Sabkhasare flat areas of sand, silt or clay that are covered by a crust of salt (halite) for at
least a part of the year. Coastal sabkhasmay be flooded by the sea during storm and spring
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21. high tides, whereas the inland variety has no direct marine influence but derives its moisture
from rare rainfall and the proximity of the water table at shallow depth, within capillary
reach of the surface.
Coastal sabkhas and lagoons
As already mentioned above, coastal sabkhasformed when the supply of wind-driven sand from
the north was cut off during the post-glacial flooding of the Gulf and deflation removed dry sand
down to the level of the water table. Water evaporates from the damp surface, especially during
the hot summer months, which becomes saturated with halite (common salt) that crystallizes to
form a hard crust. Beneath the surface, calcium sulphate also becomes concentrated and forms
a mush of gypsum crystals about 50 cm below the surface. At ground temperatures greater than
about 42°C, the water of crystallization is driven from the gypsum crystal lattice to create anhydrite.
Shinn (1983) has many illustrations of sabkhasin the emirates and other areas of the Gulf.
Perhaps the most characteristic feature of a coastal sabkhais a widespread mat of thin,
black, algae. Most of the time, this algal mat is dry, and commonly cracked and curled up
at the edges like flakes of mud in a dried-out pond. During high spring tides, however, or
when storm winds drive sea water over the almost horizontal sabkha surface, the algae
spring to life and regenerates into a slimy, wrinkly, rubbery layer. The slimy surface traps
fine calcareous particles carried over the surface by the waves, and when it cracks and curls,
wind-blown sand and silt can be trapped beneath its edges; with time, the sabkha again
acquires a crust of halite.
When halite crystallizes, it does so by growing horizontally rather than by increasing its
thickness vertically. Aspace problem ensues, which is resolved by the salt sheets over-thrusting
each other if thin, or by forming polygons (ideally hexagons) as it grows thicker.
Coastal sabkhascover the surfaces of much of the extensive system of low islands south-
west and just to the north-east of Abu Dhabi island. Along the coast, especially of Umm
al-Qaiwain and Ra’s al-Khaimah, however, the development of longshore bars has resulted
in the creation of a series of shallow lagoons, which have tidally formed deltas at their mouths
(Glennie 1970: Figs 98–100). Wave action builds the longshore bars into beaches, from which
sands (mostly the wave-broken remains of shells and carbonate skeletons of sea grasses) are
blown into the lagoon behind. In addition, as small carbonate-shelled creatures die, they leave
their shells on the lagoon floor, which becomes shallower and eventually builds up to, or even
above, normal high-tide level, and then acquires its own cover of coastal sabkhaincluding a
mat of black algae. North of Ra’s al-Khaimah town, the longshore bars formed the sites of
small fishing communities, which progressively moved seaward as each site became separated
from the sea by the next bar to extend northward.
Inland sabkhas
Inland sabkhasdiffer from the coastal variety in having no direct marine influence on their
development. Their supply of water comes from rare rainfall and the presence of a water table
within capillary reach of the surface; a balance is achieved between evaporation and deflation
at the surface and the supply of water from below which can trap wind-blown sediment, both
being affected seasonally. Algae may be present, but extensive algal mats are not well developed;
like coastal sabkhas, gypsum crystals form a layer below the surface.
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22. Within the Emirates, extensive inland sabkhasare found in three areas: at the landward
margins of the coastal sabkhas beyond the reach of storm tides and extending into some
adjacent interdune areas; in the large broad interdune areas between the huge dunes of Al
Liwa; and in Sabkha Matti, a low lying area in the far west of Abu Dhabi, about 60 km
across and extending south from the coast for almost 150 km, much of it being within
Saudi Arabia. The surface of Sabkha Matti is still no more than 40 m above sea level some
100 km south of the coast.
In the Liwa area, small flat-topped hills (mesas) are capped by a gypsum-cemented layer
indicative of former sabkha conditions. Lightly cemented dune sand, whose bedding attitudes
indicate sand transport towards the south south-east (the same as today) is exposed in the
flanks of these mesas; similar dune sands can be seen in pits dug below the gypsum-cemented
surface of the interdune sabkhas, which are at an elevation of some 80 to 90 m above sea
level. The time of deposition of the dune sands has been dated as 12 ka (in pits) and 40 and
141 ka BP in the mesas, thereby indicating that both dune and sabkha-producing conditions
have been repeated in the area; the younger dune sands were preserved by the rise in the level
of the water table during the melting of the last high-latitude ice caps. In Sabkha Matti, the
deflated relics of former dunes surrounded by damp sabkhaindicate that, prior to the last rise
in the level of the water table, this area also was the site of dunes migrating southward away
from the present Arabian Gulf. Both the Sabkha Matti and Liwa sabkhasare products of the
present high water table, which is associated with the current interglacial high sea level. During
glaciations, sabkhas occurred in neither inland nor current coastal areas.
The sabkhais a dangerous place and chances should never be taken with one, its salt-encrusted
surface often looking deceptively firm. Beneath the thin crust of the coastal sabkhathe algal
mat and underlying mush of gypsum crystals and clay-size carbonate has little bearing strength.
Unwary humans are likely to break through the surface and sink to their knees, especially if
the crust is new, while narrow-tyred vehicles can become a total loss. Inland sabkhasare little
safer. A bedouin tribesman in search of fresh pastures after rain, is likely to test the feasibility
of crossing a suspect surface by sending first sheep and goats in the care of young light-weight
children, followed in turn by himself with the heavier camels, and then his wife driving a
laden Toyota Landcruiser pickup truck.
Sand dunes
Away from the Oman Mountains and the Abu Dhabi coastline, the surface of the Emirates
is dominated by the presence of sand dunes. Dunesmigrate in the direction of the sand-
transporting wind. With a linear dune,this is achieved by the movement of sand along the
dune flanks and deposition (causing elongation) at its down-wind end; if the up-wind supply
of sand ceases for any reason (e.g. flooding of the Gulf), that end of the dune ‘shrivels’
and the dune shortens as sand is removed and not replaced. The same principle applies to
transverse dunes,but because their long axes are at right angles to the wind, sand is
transported over the top of the dune to its leeward side (where it forms an avalanche slope
with a maximum inclination of 34°) rather than around its flanks. Where the supply of
sand is limited, crescent-shaped barchans are formed; here, in addition to the movement
of sand over its crest to the avalanche slope, sand is also readily transported along the dune
flanks, which are drawn out into the long ‘horns’ that point down wind. On a much smaller
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23. scale, the axes of ripples are always at right angles to the wind that formed them, so their
distribution gives an indication of the pattern of wind flow over and around the dune.
Across central Abu Dhabi, a broad belt of large, partly eroded (deflated) north-west to south-
east trending linear dunes skirt the north-east margin of the Liwa, and lose their linear character
as the Oman border is approached; this is re-established where the dunes overlie the alluvial
fans that flank the Oman Mountains (Fig. 1). To the north of Jebel Hafit, the dune axes swing
towards the north-east as the mountains are approached (Besler 1982). These variable trends
are thought to outline the fairly constant direction of dune-forming winds at, or shortly after,
the peak of the last glaciation; since that time, the outlines of the dunes have been modified
but the basic plan is still recognizable. Fitting into the same wind pattern are the giant barchanoid
dunes (up to 150 m above the interdune sabkhas) of the Liwa. The axes of these dunes are also
transverse to the dune-forming wind, which blew towards the south south-east. Travelling further
to the west, the modern (and perhaps also the ancient) winds blow increasingly towards the
south, eventually to veer south-westward across the central Rub al-Khali towards the mountains
of Yemen. This semi-circular pattern is typical of what are known as trade wind deserts
(following the same sort of path as the trade winds sought by sailing ships heading westward
to the Americas) such as the Sahara or, in the southern hemisphere, the Australian desert.
The broad pattern of large dunes outlined above has been modified by the effects of changing
sea level in the Gulf. When sea level rose at the end of the last glaciation, the supply of aeolian
sand from the north was stopped. Although the wind still blew, its direction was out of
equilibrium with the geometry of the existing dunes, so their shape became modified; these
modifying winds apparently were not so strong as formerly, so the new resulting dune forms
were smaller than the pre-existing large dunes. This can be seen by the belt of small transverse
dunes that drape the northern and north-eastern margins of the Liwa.
Over the course of recent history, the trade winds have not been so constant in direction as
one might imagine. Today’s strongest sand-transporting wind (the northern shamal) at Abu
Dhabi airport has shifted about 30° to the north relative to its Glacial equivalent, and the winds
are more variable than they used to be. This variability is indicated by small west-east trending
linear dunes that cross the interdune areas of the Awir oasis in southern Dubai, for instance,
and other similar areas further north; it is also indicated south-west of Jebel Hafit by star-
shaped peaks on some of the large linear dunes, which form when winds blow in more than
one direction. Today’s more variable dune pattern is thought to be a product of a wind system
that is weaker than it was in Glacial time.
Every time the Arabian Gulf was flooded by the sea, shallow-marine organisms flourished
and eventually died, many leaving the evidence of their former existence on the sea floor in
the form of calcareous shells. When the Gulf floor was exposed to the wind during sub-polar
glaciations, the smaller of these shells were transported southward to the Emirates where they
formed carbonate dunes. Similar dunes near the coast of north-western India are known as
‘miliolite’ after their content of miliolid foraminifera, and the same name has been applied in
south-eastern Arabia. Inland from the coast, miliolite is widely exposed, in many cases within
the core of, or adjacent to, modern dunes (e.g. draping exposures of the Baynuna Formation in
western Abu Dhabi, from Silmiya south to Hameem,at the eastern end of the Liwa, or the Abu
Dhabi – Al Ain road south-east of Bani Yas). Along the Hameem road, two sequences of miliolite
are separated by evidence of a wetter climate; the lower sequence has a depositional age of 99
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24. ka BP and the upper of 64 ka BP, times when the sea surface was about 25 and 80 m, respec-
tively, below the present level of the Arabian Gulf. A study of the bedding attitudes of the
miliolite indicates variations in wind direction similar to those deduced for the modern dunes
(Glennie 1994).
It is clear that the dune systems of the Emirates have been controlled not only by global
shifts in wind direction, but also by glacially controlled changes in exposure of the Gulf floor,
which in turn have controlled the distribution of both coastal and inland sabkhas.T hose dunes
and sabkhasare still reacting to today’s climate and associated wind directions.
Brief History of the Quaternary in the Emirates
The early Quaternary history of the Emirates is very poorly known. The limited evidence
from sparsely dated alluvial fans suggests that it was probably a time of much higher rainfall
than now. By about a million years ago, or perhaps as late as half a million years BP, near-
polar glaciations led, in the Gulf area, to cyclic repetitions of lower sea level and stronger
winds that caused sand dunes to migrate southward, with the warmer interglacials giving
higher rainfall and less active dunes. For the past 5000 years, we seem to have been heading
slowly in the direction of increased aridity associated in the long term (80,000 years later?)
with another full glaciation in high-latitude areas.
Conclusion
By extrapolation from elsewhere, the geological history of the Emirates and adjacent areas
of Arabia over the past 600 million years or so seems to have been mostly one of relative
stability. Following tropical shallow-marine conditions of sedimentation in the late Precambrian,
the area was largely terrestrial during much of the succeeding Palaeozoic time span. Deep
erosion preceded the Permian separation of a microcontinent from the eastern margin of Arabia;
the following marine transgression was associated with the successive creation of Neo-Tethys
1 and 2. Throughout most of the Mesozoic era, the Emirates was the site of shallow-marine
sedimentation except in the two branches of Neo-Tethys, where deep-marine deposition took
place. This situation was brought to an end by closure of Neo-Tethys 1 and 2, and the obduction
of deep-oceanic sediments and a slice of newly formed back-arc oceanic crust onto the Arabian
continental margin to form an island arc. The succeeding shallow-marine limestone deposition
was terminated in the east when the Oman Mountains began to be uplifted into a high range
some 30 Ma BP, but stable conditions of sedimentation continued over the bulk of the Emirates
until major glaciations began to induce lower global sea levels perhaps some two to five
million years ago and created the present land surface. Near-polar glaciations have controlled
sea level in the Arabian Gulf for at least the last 500,000 years, thereby also controlling the
supply of dune sand from the north or the cutting off of that supply, with the resulting
widespread deflation and creation of sabkhas.
23
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VOLUTION OFTHEEMIRATES’LANDSURFACE: ANINTRODUCTION

25. Glossary of Geological Terms
abyssal plain:the almost horizontal floor of an ocean between the continental slope and mid-ocean ridge, commonly
found at depths in excess of 4000 m.
accretionary wedge:a wedge of sedimentary rocks that was scraped off the surface of a down-going plate during
subduction.
aeolianite: a consolidated sedimentary rock formed of wind-deposited sand; commonly, but not necessarily, rich in
carbonate grains.
algal mat: a sheet of rubbery algae that covers the coastal sabkha surface after flooding.
allochthonous: term implying derivation or transport from elsewhere; the Hawasina and Semail are allochthonous
because they did not originate where now found.
alluvial fan: a fan-like spread of fluvial distributary channels, commonly at the junction of mountain and plain; fans
coalesce along the length of the Oman Mountains.
anhydrite: an evaporite mineral composed of calcium sulphate, CaSO
4
, found in some sedimentary rocks. Often
derived from gypsum by losing its water of crystallization.
autochthonous: a term implying an origin where now found, i.e. not transported from elsewhere. Noun: “autochthon”.
avalanche slope: also known as slip-face. The slope that forms when wind-blown sand from the windward side of
a dune passes into the calm air of the leeward side. The sand will start to slip if further deposition would result in
the maximum angle of repose for dry sand of 34
o
being exceeded.
back-arc: the arcuate area ‘behind’ the hanging wall of a subduction zone; it may be subjected to either compression
or extension.
back-arc spreading: the process of creating new oceanic crust in the back-arc area behind a subduction trench.
barchan: seedune.
barchanoid dunes: see dune.
BP: abbreviation of Before Present, often given in Ka, thousands (K) of years (a).
capillary: resembling a hair; of very small bore. If a tube of very small bore is immersed in water, the water will
rise up within the tube as a result of capillary attraction.
cap rock/seal: an impervious rock (seal) overlying a fluid-bearing reservoir.
carbonate: general term for calcium and magnesium carbonates (limestones and dolomites).
carbonate-compensation depth: the depth below which most carbonate particles become unstable and slowly dissolve.
chert:beds of finely crystalline deep-water silica.
Climatic Optimum: the state of an ideal climate; inferred for existing desert regions to have had sufficient annual
rainfall to render the area an ideal place for man to live. Such conditions are thought to have prevailed over much
of the Saharan and Arabian deserts between about 9000 and 6500 years ago.
continental crust: the lighter (less dense) of the two main types of the Earth’s crust, which forms most land masses
but may extend below shallow seas.
continental shelf: that part of the sea floor between the coast and the marked change in slope at the shelf edge,
whose depth averages about 120 m. Continental shelves vary in width from a few kilometres to over 1000 km.
continental slope & rise: the two form the slope (upper part, to perhaps 1500 m) of the ocean floor between the
continental shelf edge and the abyssal plain at depths of about 4000 m or more.
convection current: the transfer of heat from one part of a fluid or gas to another by flow of the fluid or gas from
the hotter parts to the colder. A fluid will rise if heated from below because, through expansion, it becomes less
dense than the cold.
deflation: the blowing away of dry fine-grained rock material (sand and dust), by the wind. A form of aeolian erosion
at work chiefly in deserts.
diapir, diapirism: salt (halite) is less dense than most other rocks and is easily deformed. When buried at depth, salt
is more buoyant than overlying rocks; it may then withdraw sideways to create a vertical bulge (salt pillow) that
deforms overlying strata into anticlines and, by breaking through them, create salt domes and even salt walls. This
process is known as diapirism; the product of diapirism is a diapir.
dolomite: a calcium-magnesian limestone, commonly formed by alteration of shallow-marine limestone.
dune: accumulation of wind-blown sand that possesses one or more slipfaces. Its size is dependent on the
availability of sand and the ability of the wind to carry sand to the top without removing it again. The finest
sand grains are usually found at the crest. There are several types of dune but only those common in eastern
Arabia are described here.
barchan:crescent-shaped sand dune, which migrates downwind in the direction of its horns. It has a gentle windward
slope and a slipface on its lee slope. Barchans sometimes unite laterally to form rather irregular barchanoid dunes.
barchanoid dunes: cross between a barchan and a transverse dune.
24
U
NITEDARABEMIRATES: A NEWPERSPECTIVE

26. linear dune: dune whose long axis is parallel to the prevailing dune-forming wind; it grows by extending downwind.
Avalanche slopes, where present, are almost parallel to the axis of the dune and can face towards either flank.
May occur as a swarm of parallel dunes as in the Rub al Khali or the Wahiba.
megadune: any large dune whose height exceeds about 60 m and has a crestal spacing of about 500 m or more.
Most are thought to have formed during the last major glaciation.
star dune: a roughly star-shaped pyramidal dune with three or more radiating arms with slip faces. Thought to
form where seasonal winds are strongly oblique to each other. May result also by modification of older transverse
or longitudinal dunes.
transverse dune: a dune whose long axis is at right angles to the prevailing dune-forming wind. Likely to break
up into barchanoid and then barchan dunes if the supply of sand is not maintained.
evaporites: minerals, mostly anhydrite, gypsum or halite (common salt), that are typically formed in areas where
the rate of evaporation exceeds that of rainfall or fluvial influx (i.e. in desert areas).
Gondwana: an ancient mega-continent named after the Gond tribe of northern India. Comprised Antarctica, Australia,
India, Afro-Arabia and South America. It began to split up into its modern components in the later Mesozoic.
gypsum: an evaporitemineral, Calcium Sulphate (CaSO
4
.- 2(H
2
O)), typically found just below the surface of coastal
and inland sabkhas. Alters to anhydrite when it loses its water of crystallization.
Hawasina: an imbricate wedge of sediments of mid Permian to mid Cretaceous age that were deposited over the
floor of Neo-Tethys 1.
hydrocarbons: any organic compound comprising carbon and hydrogen, usually refers to oil and gas.
Ka: abbreviation for thousands (K) of years (a).
limestone: calcium carbonate (CaCO
3
), mostly of biogenic origin, and largely formed in shallow seas.
linear dune:seedune.
Ma: abbreviation for millions (M) of years (a).
magma: molten rock when still within the Earth’s crust or mantle.
mantle: the part of the Earth, nearly 3000 km thick, that underlies crust of both continental and oceanic type.
maturation, maturity: the process of ‘ripening’ a source rock to the state where it generates oil or gas; the state of a
source rock with respect to its ability to generate oil or gas. Considered to range from immature, before any oil or
gas has been generated, through mature to post-mature, when no additional oil or gas can be generated from it.
megadune:see dune.
mesa: a mesa is a flat-topped plateau bounded on at least three sides by steep, commonly cliffed slopes. The bedding
is normally horizontal. Abutte is a very small mesa. Both are found in the Miocene strata of western Abu Dhabi.
microcontinent: a sub-continent or continental sliver calved from a major continental plate by processes of crustal
separation and spreading.
mid-ocean ridge: a (mostly) submarine ridge that transects an oceanic area and is a locus of generation of new
oceanic crust.
migration: the passage of a newly generated oil or gas out of a source rock (primary migration), and its movement
via rock conduits to other locations, including hydrocarbon traps (secondary migration).
nappe: a large sheet-like rock unit that has been tectonically emplaced (thrust) over a dominantly sub-horizontal or
low-angle floor (e.g. Semail Nappe of Oman Mountains); at the contact, older rocks overlie younger rocks, which
is the reverse of what happens during deposition of normal sedimentary sequences.
nappe emplacement (obduction): the placing of a nappe above another (usually autochthonous) rock unit without
implying whether this relationship was the result of over-thrusting or underthrusting.
Neo-Tethys I: that part of the ancient ocean Tethys formed when the Sirjan-Sanandaj microcontinent separated from
the eastern (Arabian) margin of Gondwana.
Neo-Tethys 2: the ocean that separated Central Iran from Siran-Sarandaj.
obduction: the process by which former oceanic crust or a wedge of oceanic sediments comes to lie upon crust of
continental type.
oceanic crust: the type of crust that characteristically underlies the Earth’s oceans; it is denser than continental crust.
ophiolite: obducted oceanic crust, now separated from previously contiguous crust of oceanic type.
parautochthonous: a rock unit that is not quite autochthonous, and has undergone some (thrust) transport; e.g. the
Ru’us al-Jibal rock units.
pillow lava: the pillow-like masses of rock that form when magma is extruded below water and chilled rapidly.
plate: one of the major areas of the Earth’s crust, normally comprising continental and contiguous oceanic crust.
plate tectonics:the processes by which the Earth’s crustal plates are formed and interact with each other.
porosity: the pore spaces within a rock; in oil fields, these pores are filled with oil or gas.
reservoir, reservoir rock: any rock that can contain moveable fluids in its pore spaces.
ripple: a surface undulation, generally of unconsolidated sand, whose wavelength depends on wind strength and is
constant with time. The ripple axis is always transverse to the wind. The coarsest grains are found at the crest.
25
E
VOLUTION OFTHEEMIRATES’LANDSURFACE: ANINTRODUCTION

27. The ripple height depends on the range of grain sizes present and the wind strength.
sabkha: a flat area of clay, silt or sand, commonly with crusts of salt. Subdivided into:
1) coastal sabkha: a coastal flat at or just above the level of normal high tide. Its sediments consist of sand, silt
or clay and its surface is often covered with a salt crust formed by the evaporation of water drawn to the surface
by capillary action or from occasional marine inundations. The coastal sabkhais characterized by the presence
of algal mats and the occurrence of gypsum and anhydrite within its sediment. It is subject to deflation down
to the water table.
2) inland sabkha: a flat area of clay, silt or sand, commonly with saline encrustations, that is typical of desert
areas of inland drainage and some interdune areas. Their salts may be formed by evaporation of surface water,
or of water drawn to the surface from the water table by capillary action.
salt dome: a dome-shaped structure caused by the upward penetration of a circular plug of salt, commonly 1-2 km in
diameter, through overlying strata; the plug may also give strata through which it fails to penetrate a domal shape.
Semail Nappe: the name given to the huge ophiolite nappe of the Oman Mountains.
Semail ophiolite: the huge ophiolite slab of the Oman Mountains typically comprising peridotites and harzburgites,
partly serpentinized, gabbros and basaltic pillow lavas.
shamal: Arabic word for north: applied to north or northwest wind that blows down the Arabian Gulf and clockwise
across the Rub al-Khali.
star dune:seedune.
source rock: a rock rich in organic matter which, if heated sufficiently, will generate oil or gas.
subduction: the process at a plate margin of crustal consumption down a subduction zone.
subduction zone: a sloping linear zone down which crust and overlying sediment of mostly oceanic type passes into
the mantle beneath the edge of another plate, commonly but not exclusively of continental type.
temperature gradient: the change in temperature measured over a given distance; usually measured in °C/km. Often
used to calculate depth at which source rocks become mature.
thrust: a reverse fault or slide plane, on which older rocks have been emplaced over younger ones.
thrust sheet: a sheet of rock that has been tectonically emplaced over a younger rock sequence, the two units commonly
being separated by a relatively low-angle thrust plane: a nappe.
Trade Wind Desert: a term sometimes applied to those deserts in subtropical land areas that are crossed by the trade
winds.
transverse dune: see dune.
trap: any deformation (fold, fault, wedge-out) of a reservoir rock/seal couplet that can cause hydrocarbons to be
trapped as they migrate from their source rocks.
turbidite: the sedimentary deposit that settles out from a turbidity current; its sediment is commonly graded from
coarse at the base to fine at the top.
turbidity current: high velocity current of relatively dense turbid sediment and water that occasionally flows across
the floor of some ocean basins from a site usually high on the adjacent continental slope.
wadi: desert watercourse, dry except after rain, or a valley where water may continue to flow intermittently.
water of crystallisation: the water present in hydrated compounds such as gypsum (CaSO
4
.2H
2
O). If the temperature
of the gypsum crystal is raised above about 50°C, either by deep burial or by near-surface heating in a desert, it loses
its water of crystallisation (2H
2
0) and becomes the anhydrous mineral anhydrite (CaSO
4
).
window: an area where erosion has cut down through a thrust plane to expose the underlying rocks: e.g. Hagil
Window in the south-west Ru’us al Jibal.
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27
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VOLUTION OFTHEEMIRATES’LANDSURFACE: ANINTRODUCTION

29. Before the Emirates:
an Archaeological and Historical Account
of Developments in the Region c. 5000 BC to 676 AD
D.T. Potts
Introduction
In a little more than 40 years the territory of the former Trucial States and modern United
Arab Emirates (UAE) has gone from being a blank on the archaeological map of Western
Asia to being one of the most intensively studied regions in the entire area. The present chapter
seeks to synthesize the data currently available which shed light on the lifestyles, industries
and foreign relations of the earliest inhabitants of the UAE.
Climate and Environment
Within the confines of a relatively narrow area, the UAE straddles five different topographic
zones. Moving from west to east, these are (1) the sandy Gulf coast and its intermittent
sabkha; (2) the desert foreland; (3) the gravel plains of the interior; (4) the Hajar mountain
range; and (5) the eastern mountain piedmont and coastal plain which represents the
northern extension of the Batinah of Oman. Each of these zones is characterized by a wide
range of exploitable natural resources (Table 1) capable of sustaining human groups
practising a variety of different subsistence strategies, such as hunting, horticulture,
agriculture and pastoralism. Tables 2–6 summarize the chronological distribution of those
terrestrial faunal, avifaunal, floral, marine, and molluscan species which we know to have
been exploited in antiquity, based on the study of faunal and botanical remains from
excavated archaeological sites in the UAE. Unfortunately, at the time of writing the number
of sites from which the inventories of faunal and botanical remains have been published
remains minimal. Many more archaeological excavations (Fig. 1) have taken place which
have yielded biological remains that have not yet been published. Nevertheless, a range
of sites with a published floral and faunal record already exists which extends from the
late prehistoric era of the fifth/fourth millennium BC to the first few centuries AD, and
these leave us in no doubt that the pre-Islamic inhabitants of the region exploited a very
wide range of plants, animals, fish and shellfish. So far from being an inhospitable desert,
the land and waters of the modern UAE presented its ancient inhabitants with an enormous
variety of exploitable, economically important resources.
28

30. 29
B
EFORE THEEMIRATES
Table 1. Environments and resources of significance in the past found in the UAE
Resource Category Gulf Coast Desert Interior Piedmont Mountains Eastern Piedmont
Faunalfish small mammals camel small mammals fish
shellfish gazelle freshwater fish shellfish
dugong camel marine turtles
cormorant crabs
marine turtles
whales and dolphins
Floralmangrove fodder plants cultivars timber grazing plants
fodder plants fuel plants fodder plants cultivars timber
fuel plants medicinal plants fuel plants fodder plants fodder plants
medicinal plants timber fuel plants fuel plants
medicinal plants medicinal plants
Mineralsandstone sandstone well-drained soils limestone igneous rock
beach rock igneous rock limestone
lime copper shell
pearls iron
shell soft-stones
Waterbrackish brackish abundant abundant abundant
Resource Utilizationfishing pastoralism agriculture horticulture horticulture
pearling oasis horticulture horticulture pastoralism pastoralism
limited gardening pastoralism hunting fishing
pastoralism
Fig. 1. Map of the UAE, showing the approximate locations of the archaeological sites mentioned in
the text.
Dalma
Sir Bani Yas
Ra’s al-Aygh
Marawah
• Barqat Bu Hassa
• Habshan
• Abu Dhabi Airport
Ghanadha
Ghalilah
AwhalaHatta •
Rafaq •
Wadi al-Qawr •
al-Madam
W. Munay’i •
Umm Safah
al-ThuqaibahJ. Buhais
J. Emalah
Kalba
• al-Qusais
• Bithna
QidfaMleiha •
Muwailah
Khor Fakkan
Tel Abraq
Bidiyah •
Sharm •• al-Dur
AsimahRamlah
Khatt Dibba
Nud Ziba
W. Haqil
Dhayah
Shimal
Jazirat al-Hulayla
Nadd al-Walid 1-2
Ghallah
Akab
al-Madar
al-Hamriyah
Moweihat
Sharjah Tower
al-Qassimiya
al-Sufouh
• Qarn Bint Saud
• J. Huwayyah
J. Auha •
Hili •
Rumeilah •Qattarah
• J. Hafit
Mazyad
Balghelam
Umm al-Nar
• J. Barakah
Not to scale; locations approximate

31. 30
U
NITEDARABEMIRATES: A NEWPERSPECTIVE
Table 3. Reptiles and birds attested on archaeological sites in the UAE
Species Late Prehistoric Umm al-Nar Wadi Suq Iron Age Mleiha/al-Dur
REPTILE (wild)
green turtle (Chelonia mydas)A kab
1
Tell Abraq
2
Tell Abraq? Tell Abraq? al-Dur
3
Dalma
Chelonidae indet. Dalma
4
Mleiha
5
Umm al-Nar
snake indet. (Serpentes sp.) Mleiha
BIRD (wild)
Socotra cormorant
(Phalacrocorax nigrogularis)D alma Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Tell Abraq al-Dur
Umm al-Nar
6
Mleiha
7
ostrich (Struthio camelus)A bu Dhabi airport
7
Tell Abraq Mleiha
Abu Dhabi airport
snake bird (Anhinga rufa ) Umm al-Nar
duck (Anas querquedula) Umm al-Nar
flamingo (Phoenicopterus aff. ruber) Umm al-Nar
giant heron? (Ardea bennuides ) Umm al-Nar
bird unident. Tell Abraq Tell Abraq
BIRD (domestic)
chicken (Gallus gallus f. domestica)a l-Dur
1
Prieur and Guerin 1991.
2
Stephan 1995.
3
Van Neer and Gautier 1993.
4
Beech 2000
5
Beech 1998.
6
Hoch 1979, 1995.
7
P. Hellyer, pers. comm.
8
Gautier 1992, Gautier and Van Neer 1999.
Table 2. Mammalian fauna attested on archaeological sites in the UAE
Species Late Prehistoric Umm al-Nar Wadi Suq Iron Age Mleiha/al-Dur
MAMMAL (wild)
Rodentia Tell Abraq
1
Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Mleiha
2
rat (Rattus rattus) al-Dur
3
mouse (Mus musculus) al-Dur
mouse (Mus domesticus) Mleiha
Rueppell’s fox (Vu lpes rueppelis)a l-Dur
Arabian red fox (Vu lpes vulpes) al-Dur
Mleiha
fox (Vulpessp.) Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Mleiha
gazelle (Gazella subgutturosa)T ell Abraq Tell Abraq Tell Abraq
Umm al-Nar
4
gazelle indet. (Gazella gazella ssp.) Akab
5
Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Tell Abraq al-Dur
Dalma
6
Mleiha
bottlenose dolphin (T ursiops truncatus)
dolphin indet. (Delphinus sp.) Dalma Umm al-Nar Tell Abraq Tell Abraq al-Dur
dugong (Dugong dugon)A kab Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Tell Abraq al-Dur
Dalma Umm al-Nar?
rorqual (Balaenoptera) Umm al-Nar
Arabian oryx (Oryx leucoryx)T ell Abraq Tell Abraq Tell Abraq al-Dur
Umm al-Nar Mleiha
tahr (Hermitragus jayakari) Mleiha
camel (Camelus dromedarius )T ell Abraq Tell Abraq
Umm al-Nar
deer (Dama mesopotamica ) al-Dur
MAMMAL (domestic)
Zebu (Bos indicus)T ell Abraq? Tell Abraq Tell Abraq
Umm al-Nar
taurine cattle (Bos taurus)T ell Abraq? al-Dur
Mleiha
sheep (Ovis aries)D alma Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Tell Abraq al-Dur
Umm al-Nar Mleiha
goat (Capra hircus)D alma Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Tell Abraq al-Dur
Umm al-Nar Mleiha
canid indet. Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Mleiha
dog (Canis familiaris) Shimal al-Dur
Mleiha
donkey (Equus sp.) Mleiha
equid indet. Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Tell Abraq al-Dur
dromedary camel (Camelus dromedarius )T ell Abraq al-Dur
Mleiha
Bactrian camel (Camelus ferus f. bactriana)a l-Dur
Camelus bactrianus x dromedarius Mleiha
1
Stephan 1995.
5
Prieur and Guerin 1991.
2
Gautier 1992, Gautier and Van Neer 1999, Mashkour and Van Neer 1999.
6
Beech 2000.
3
Van Neer and Gautier 1993.
7
Uerpmann 1999.
4
Hoch sp.1979, 1995.

32. 31
B
EFORE THEEMIRATES
Table 4. Fish attested on archaeological sites in the UAE
Species Late Prehistoric Umm al-Nar Wadi Suq Iron Age Mleiha/al-Dur
FISH (marine)
Elasmobranchii Dalma
1
Carcharhinidae
requiem shark (Carcharhinus sp.)
Sphyrnidae al-Dur
2
hammerhead shark (Sphyrna sp.) al-Dur
shark indet. Umm al-Nar
3
Pristidae
sawfish (Pristis sp.) Umm al-Nar al-Dur
Dasyatidae (Trygonidae)
stingray (Dasyatis?) Umm al-Nar al-Dur
Clupeidae
herring (Clupeidae indet.) al-Dur
Chanidae
milkfish (Chanos chanos) al-Dur
Ariidae Dalma
sea catfish (Arius thalassinus) al-Dur
Belonidae
needlefish (Ty losurus crocodilus)D alma al-Dur
Platycephalidae
flathead (Platycephalus indicus)a l-Dur
Serranidae
sea bass/grouper (Epinephelus sp.) Dalma al-Dur
Carangidae
jacks and pompanos Dalma al-Dur
(Scomberoidessp.)
(Seriolasp.)
(Megalaspis cordyla)
(Carangoides chrysophrys)
(Carangoidessp.)
(Caranxsp.)
(Gnathodon speciosus)
(Alectis indicus)
(Ulua mentalis)
Carangidae indet.
Lutjanidae
snapper (Lutjanus sp.) al-Dur
Gerreidae
mojarra (Gerres sp.) al-Dur
Haemulidae
grunt (Pomadasys sp.) al-Dur
Lethrinidae Dalma
emperor (Lethrinus sp.) al-Madar? al-Dur
Sparidae
porgie Dalma al-Dur
(Crenidens crenidens) al-Dur
(Acanthopagrus berda) al-Dur
(Acanthopagrus latus) al-Dur
(Rhabdosargus sarba) al-Dur
(Rhabdosargussp.) Mleiha
(Argyrops spinifer) al-Dur
Sparidae indet. al-Madar? al-Dur
Ephippidae
spadefish (Platax sp.) al-Dur
Mugilidae
mullet (Mugilidae indet.) al-Dur
Mleiha
Sphyraenidae Dalma
barracuda (Sphyraena sp.) al-Dur
Scaridae Dalma
parrotfish (Scarus sp.) al-Dur
Siganidae
rabbitfish (Siganus sp.) al-Dur
Scombridae Dalma al-Dur
bonito/tuna (Euthynnus affinus)D alma al-Dur
Mleiha
tuna (Thunnus sp.) al-Dur
Mleiha
Tetraodontidae
puffer (Tetraodontidae indet.) al-Dur
fish indet. (still under study) Tell Abraq
5
Tell Abraq Tell Abraq
FISH (freshwater)
Cyprinidae
barbel (Barbus sp.) al-Dur
Crustaceans
crab et al. (still under study) al-Madar Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Tell Abraq al-Dur
Dalma Mleiha
1
Beech 2000.
2
Van Neer and Gautier 1993.
3
Hoch 1979, 1995.
4
Uerpmann and Uerpmann 1996.
5
Stephan 1995.

33. 32
U
NITEDARABEMIRATES: A NEWPERSPECTIVE
Most, if not all, of the flora and fauna utilized by the pre-Islamic population of the region is
still to be found in the area. This is not an unequivocal indication that no climatic change has
taken place since the prehistoric past, but it is certainly an indication that the changes which have
taken place have been minor rather than major ones. At the height of the Flandrian Transgression,
c. 4000 BC, sea level in the Arabian Gulf reached its peak around .5m higher than it is today
(Lambeck 1996), and until c. 3000 BC a more humid environment prevailed, largely as a result
of wind systems which were weaker than those at present, ‘permitting convection-induced thunder
storms in coastal and mountainous areas’ (Glennie et al. 1994: p 3). After 3000 BC today’s arid
regime set in and although there have been minor climatic adjustments since that time, it is safe
to say that the basic pattern observable in the region today has prevailed for the past five millennia.
Table 5. Plants and cultivars attested on archaeological sites in the UAE
Species Late Prehistoric Umm al-Nar Wadi Suq Iron Age Mleiha/al-Dur
FLORA (wild)
Apocynaceae
oleander (Nerium oleander) Mleiha
1
Asclepiadaceae
Sodom’s apple (Calotropis procera )M leiha
al-Dur
Avenaceae
oat (Avenasp.) Hili 8
Avicenniaceae
mangrove (Av icennia marina)T ell Abraq?
white mangrove (Av icennia marina)T ell Abraq Tell Abraq Tell Abraq al-Dur
Chenopodiaceae
goosefoot (sp. indet.) Hili 8
2
Mleiha
Leguminosae
acacia indet. (Acacia sp.) Hili 8
3
Muwailah Mleiha
gum arabic (Acacia nilotica) Mleiha
sissoo (Dalbergia sissoo)T ell Abraq Mleiha
4
al-Dur
prosopis (Prosopis cineraria)M uwailah Mleiha
Oleaceae
ash (Fraxinus sp.) Mleiha
Pinaceae
Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis) al-Dur
Platanaceae
oriental plane (Platanus orientalis)M leiha
Polygonaceae
Calligonumsp. Hili 8
Rhamnaceae
Christ’s thorn (Ziziphus spina-christi)D alma
5
Hili 8
6
Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Mleiha
7
Tell Abraq Muwailah
Rhizophoraceae
extinct mangrove Dalma Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Mleiha
al-Dur
Solanaceae
desert thorn (L ycium sp.) Mleiha
Tamaricaceae
tamarisk (T amarix sp.)H ili Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Mleiha
Tell Abraq Muwailah
FLORA (domestic)
wheat (T riticumsp.) Umm al-Nar
8
Mleiha
emmer wheat (T riticum dicoccum)H ili 8
bread wheat (T riticum aestivum)T ell Abraq
9
Tell Abraq
Hili 8
barley (Hordeum sp.) Umm al-Nar Mleiha
2-row hulled barley (H. distichon)H ili 8
6-row hulled barley (H vulgare)T ell Abraq Tell Abraq Tell Abraq
Hili 8
6-row naked barley (H. vulgare var. nudum)H ili 8
date palm (Phoenix dactylifera)T ell Abraq Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Mleiha
Dalma
10
Hili 8 Muwailah
11
al-Dur
melon (Cucumis sp.) Hili 8
1
Tengberg and Potts 1999.
2
Coubray 1988, Tengberg 1998.
3
Tengberg 1998.
4
Cleuziou and Costantini 1980, Cleuziou
1989, Potts 1994b, Tengberg 1998.
5
Tengberg 1998.
6
Cleuziou and Costantini 1980, Cleuziou
1989, Potts 1994b.
7
Coubray 1988.
8
Willcox 1995.
9
Willcox and Tengberg 1995.
10
Beech and Shepherd, in press
11
Tengberg 1998.

34. 33
B
EFORE THEEMIRATES
Table 6. Molluscan fauna attested on archaeological sites in the UAE
Species Late Prehistoric Umm al-Nar Wadi Suq Iron Age Mleiha/al-Dur
Marine Bivalves
Acar plicata Mleiha
Alectryonella plicatula Mleiha
1
Amiantis umbonella Tell Abraq
2
Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Mleiha
Shimal
3
Anadara sp. Mleiha
Anadara antiquata Shimal Mleiha
Anadara ehrenbergeri al-Madar
4
Tell Abraq Mleiha
Awhala
5
Anadara uropigimelana Mleiha
Anodontia edentula Mleiha
Asaphis deflorata Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Mleiha
Asaphis violascens Shimal Mleiha
Balanus sp. Tell Abraq Mleiha
Barbatia fusca Tell Abraq Mleiha
Barbatia helblingii Shimal Mleiha
Barbatia obliquata Mleiha
Barbatia tenella Mleiha
Barbatia sp. al-Madar al-Dur
6
Callista erycina Akab
7
Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Mleiha
Shimal Awhala
Callista sp. Mleiha
Cardita bicolor Mleiha
Cardita variegata Mleiha
Cardita sp. al-Dur
Certhidea cingulata Tell Abraq al-Dur
Chama pacifica Mleiha
Chamasp. Mleiha
Chlamys ruschenbergerii Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Mleiha
Shimal
Circe corrugata Shimal Mleiha
Circe sp. Mleiha
Circenita callipyga Dalma
8
Shimal Tell Abraq Mleiha
Codakia tigerina Mleiha
Decatopecten plica Mleiha
Dosinia alta Mleiha
Dosinia ceylonica Mleiha
Dosinia tumida Mleiha
Glycymeris sp. al-Dur
Mleiha
Glycymeris lividus Tell Abraq Mleiha
Glycymeris maskatensis Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Mleiha
Shimal
Isognomon legumen Shimal Mleiha
Laevicardium papyraceum Mleiha
Lutraria sp. Mleiha
Mactra lilacea Mleiha
Marcia sp. Shimal Awhala Mleiha
Marcia hiantina Akab Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Tell Abraq al-Dur
al-Madar Shimal Muwailah
9
Mleiha
Marcia opima Tell Abraq Mleiha
Modiolus phillipinarum Mleiha
al-Dur
Periglypta puerpera Mleiha
Pinctada sp. Tell Abraq? Tell Abraq Tell Abraq al-Dur
Awhala Mleiha
Pinctada margaritifera Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Mleiha
Shimal Muwailah
Pinctada radiata Dalma Tell Abraq Muwailah al-Dur
al-Madar Shimal Mleiha
Pinna sp. Tell Abraq Mleiha
Pteria marmorata Mleiha
Saccostrea cucullata Akab Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Tell Abraq al-Dur
Hamriyah
10
Shimal Awhala Mleiha
al-Madar Muwailah
Sanguinolaria cumingiana Tell Abraq Mleiha
Solen sp. Mleiha
Spondylussp. Tell Abraq Tell Abraq al-Dur
Mleiha
Spondylus ?exilis Shimal Mleiha
Spondylus gaederopus Mleiha
Sunetta effosa Mleiha
Tellina sp. Mleiha
Tivela damaoïdes Mleiha
Tivela ponderosa Mleiha
Tivela sp. Mleiha
Trachycardium sp. Mleiha
Trachycardium lacunosum Tell Abraq Tell Abraq al-Dur
Shimal Mleiha
Turitellasp. al-Dur
Venus verrucosa Mleiha
Marine Gastropods
Ancilla castenea Mleiha
Architectonia perspectiva Tell Abraq? Mleiha
Babylonia spirata Mleiha
Bullia sp. Mleiha
Bullia tranquebarica Tell Abraq Mleiha
Bursa bardeyi Mleiha
Bursa sp. Mleiha
Bythiniasp. Mleiha
Cerithium sp. Mleiha
Cerithium caeruleum Mleiha
Cerithidea cingulata Tell Abraq Shimal Tell Abraq Mleiha
al-Dur
Charoniasp.? Mleiha
Clypeomorus bifasciatus Mleiha
Conus betulinus Mleiha
Conus cf. ebraeus Mleiha
Conus cf. kermadecensis Mleiha

35. 34
U
NITEDARABEMIRATES: A NEWPERSPECTIVE
Table 6. Molluscan fauna attested on archaeological sites in the UAE (continued)
Species Late Prehistoric Umm al-Nar Wadi Suq Iron Age Mleiha/al-Dur
Conus flavidus Mleiha
Conus striatus Mleiha
Conus tessulatus Mleiha
Conus textile al-Dur
Conus sp. Tell Abraq Mleiha
Cronia konkanensis Shimal Mleiha
Cuma lacera Tell Abraq? Tell Abraq? Mleiha
Cymatium sp. Mleiha
Cypraea sp. Tell Abraq al-Dur
Mleiha
Cypraea arabica Tell Abraq Mleiha
Cypraea clandestina Awhala Mleiha
Cypraea caurica Mleiha
Cypraea gracilis Mleiha
al-Dur
Cypraea grayana Awhala Mleiha
Cypraeaaff. lentiginosa Mleiha
Cypraea turdus Tell Abraq Tell Abraq al-Dur
Shimal Mleiha
Engina mendicaria Mleiha
al-Dur
Engina sp. Mleiha
Fasciolaria trapezium Mleiha
Ficus subintermedia Tell Abraq Tell Abraq? Tell Abraq Mleiha
Jebel al-Emalah
11
Shimal
al-Sufouh
12
Fusinus arabicus Mleiha
al-Dur
Lambis sp. Mleiha
Lambis truncata sebae Mleiha
Lunella coronatus Dalma Shimal Mleiha
Monilea obscura Shimal Mleiha
Morula granulata Mleiha
Murex (Hexaplex) kuesterianusDalma, Akab Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Tell Abraq al-Dur
Hamriyah Muwailah Mleiha
al-Madar
Murex scolopax Tell Abraq Mleiha
Nassarius arcularius plicatus Tell Abraq Mleiha
Nassarius coronatus Mleiha
Nassarius sp. Shimal Mleiha
Nerita sp. Mleiha
Nerita albicilla Mleiha
Neverita sp. Mleiha
Neverita didyma Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Mleiha
Oliva bulbosa Tell Abraq Shimal Tell Abraq al-Dur
Mleiha
Patella exusta pica Mleiha
Patellasp. Mleiha
al-Dur
Phalium faurotis Mleiha
Phasianella solida Shimal Mleiha
Phasienella variegata Mleiha
Planaxis sulcatus Mleiha
Polinices tumidus Mleiha
Polinices sp. Shimal Mleiha
Rapana bulbosa Mleiha
Siratus kuesterianus Shimal Mleiha
Strombus decorus persicus Dalma Tell Abraq Tell Abraq al-Dur
Shimal Mleiha
Strombus gibberulus Mleiha
Strombus sp. Mleiha
Te rebralia palustris Akab Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Tell Abraq al-Dur
Hamriyah Shimal Awhala Mleiha
al-Madar Muwailah
Thais mutabilis Mleiha
Thais savignyi Shimal Mleiha
Thais sp. Mleiha
Tonna sp. Shimal Mleiha
Tonna dolium Mleiha
Tonna luteostoma Mleiha
Trochus erythraeus Tell Abraq Tell Abraq? Mleiha
Shimal
Turbo coronatus al-Madar Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Tell Abraq Mleiha
Turbo radiatus Mleiha
Turbo sp. Mleiha
Turritellasp. al-Dur
Mleiha
Turritella cochlea Mleiha
Turritella torulosa Mleiha
Umbonium vestiarium Shimal Mleiha
Vermetes sulcatus Mleiha
al-Dur
Vermetussp. Mleiha
Scaphopods
Dentalium octangulatum al-Sufouh Shimal Mleiha
Jebel al-Emalah
Dentaliumsp. Mleiha
FRESHWATER MOLLUSCS
Melanoides tuberculata Mleiha
al-Dur
1
Prieur 1999.
7
Prieur and Guerin 1991.
2
Prieur 1990.
8
Beech and Elders 1999.
3
Glover 1991.
9
E. Thompson, pers. comm.
4
Uerpmann and Uerpmann 1996.
10
Jasim 1996.
5
E. Thompson, pers. comm.
11
Benton and Potts, in press.
6
Van Neer and Gautier 1993.
12
Benton 1996.

36. 35
B
EFORE THEEMIRATES
The Arabian Bifacial Tradition (c. 5000–3100 BC)
During the last glacial maximum (from c. 68,000 to 8000 BC), winds were so strong in the
desert regions of the globe that they ‘probably blew at sand-transporting speeds for much of
each glacial winter’in eastern Arabia causing ‘severe dessication, even at reduced air temper-
atures, producing conditions that were probably too severe for man to tolerate’ (Glennie et
al. 1994: pp 2–3). This fact, perhaps more than any other, helps to explain the absence of
Pleistocene hominid occupation and Middle and Upper Palaeolithic stone tool industries in
the UAE. The only exception to this yet identified may come from a site at Jebel Barakah in
the Western Province of Abu Dhabi where radial cores and the tip of a bifacial tool were
recovered which might date to the Middle Pleistocene (McBrearty 1993, 1999: pp 382–384).
The last glaciation collapsed around 10,000 years ago, and the slightly moister conditions
which ensued from c. 8000 to 3000 BC have often been described as a Climatic Optimum
(Glennie et al. 1994: p 3). It was during this period that the first securely dated human
settlements in the region appeared. Finely pressure-flaked, bifacial stone tools (Fig. 2) belonging
to what has been called the ‘Arabian bifacial tradition’ have been found on a large number of
sites in a wide range of environmental zones throughout the Emirates. The most important of
these are listed in Table 7. Tanged points, foliates, blades, knives, drills and other tools attest
to the diversity of the tool-kit of the region’s first inhabitants. Affinities with material from
the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain (Spoor 1997) are obvious, suggesting
that the entire region may have formed a single cultural province at this time.
In other respects these areas also show shared traits. Painted pottery of Ubaid type, imported
from Mesopotamia, has been found on many of the coastal sites in the UAE, eastern Saudi Arabia,
Qatar, Bahrain and the islands of Kuwait, revealing the existence of contacts between these regions
and the peoples of southern Iraq in the fifth millennium BC. Petrographic analysis, moreover,
has confirmed that some (and most probably all) of the pottery found on the Arabian bifacial
sites in eastern Saudi Arabia was imported from Mesopotamia itself, and the likelihood that such
was the case in respect to the material found on sites in the UAE is equally strong (Méry 1994:
p 398; Méry 1996; Méry and Schneider 1996). Be that as it may, it is important to underscore
the fact that this introduction of pottery into the region did not lead immediately to the birth of
a local ceramic industry, something which did not appear until the third millennium BC.
a
b
c
d
Fig. 2. Arabian bifacial tools from al-Madar
(a-c) and Hamriyah (d). After Boucharlat et al.
1991b: Fig. 1.1-3; Millet 1991: Fig. 1.4.

37. Contact with areas to the north may also help account for the introduction of domesticates
such as sheep, goat and cattle, the wild forerunners of which were never at home in south-
eastern Arabia (Uerpmann and Uerpmann 1996). All of these domesticates have been found
on Arabian bifacial sites in eastern Saudi Arabia and they are present at Ra's al-Hamra 6 in
Oman by the fifth millennium as well. Thus, it is likely that they were being herded on sites
in the UAE by this time. As the stone tool industry found throughout eastern Arabia which
precedes the bifacial tradition – known as Qatar B (but absent in the UAE) – shows clear
affinities to the pre-pottery Neolithic industry of the Levant, it has been suggested that this
may have been the ultimate source of both the people and the herd animals which eventually
populated eastern Arabia during the earlier portion of the mid-Holocene Climatic Optimum,
beginning c. 5000 BC.
The fact that the tool kit of the earliest inhabitants of the region contained numerous projectile
points should not lead us to conclude prematurely that they were primarily hunters. Rather,
Uerpmann and Uerpmann (1996) have stressed that herders will maximize their own flocks’
secondary products – such as milk, fleece and hair – by preserving their animals and hunting
to provide any meat desired. Thus, the Arabian bifacial sites may be those of herders who
supplemented their diet by hunting, rather than hunters who kept a few domestic animals.
The fact that ostrich eggshell fragments (Aspinall 1998, Potts in press b) have been recovered
at sites with bifacial stone tools does not mean that these notoriously shy and elusive creatures
were hunted, merely that their eggs, so widely used in antiquity as containers for liquids, were
already being employed in this capacity at an early date.
36
U
NITEDARABEMIRATES: A NEWPERSPECTIVE
Table 7. Principal late prehistoric sites in the UAE
Location Site Literature
Jazirat al-Hamra Nadd al-Walid 1-2 Gebel 1988; Glover et al. 1990; Uerpmann 1992
Ra’s al-Khaimah Wadi Haqil de Cardi 1985; Stocks 1996
Khatt Kh 92, 117-119, 135 de Cardi et al. 1994
Umm al-Qaiwain al-Madar Cauvin & Calley 1984; Boucharlat et al. 1991b; Haerinck 1994b;
Uerpmann & Uerpmann 1996
Ramlah Uerpmann & Uerpmann 1996
Akab Prieur & Guerin 1991; Boucharlat et al. 1991a
Tell Abraq Potts 1991a
Sharjah al-Hamriyah Cauvin & Calley 1984; Minzoni Déroche 1985a; Haerinck 1991a; Millet
1991; Boucharlat et al. 1991a; Haerinck 1994b; Jasim 1996
al-Qassimiya Minzoni Déroche 1985a; Calley & Santoni 1986; Millet 1988; Boucharlat
et al. 1991a
Sharjah Tower Millet 1988
Mleiha/ P15, 18-19, Minzoni Déroche 1985b; Millet 1989
Jebel Faiyah 21-22, 28 Jebel al-Emalah Charpentier 1996
Jebel Buhais Jebel Buhais S. Jasim, H.-P. and M. Uerpmann, pers. comm.
al-Madam al-Madam Gebel 1988
Qarn Bint Saud Qarn Bint Saud Gebel 1988
Al Ain Jebel Huwayyah Copeland & Bergne 1976; Gebel et al. 1989
Jebel Auha Gebel 1988
Mazyad Gebel 1988; Gebel et al. 1989
Hili 8 Inizan and Tisier 1980
Western Region Barqat Bu Hassa Gebel 1988
Habshan Gebel 1988
Jebel Barakah McBrearty 1993
Shuwaihat McBrearty 1999
Hamra McBrearty 1999
Ra’s al-Aysh McBrearty 1999
Bida al-Mitawaa Crombé 2000
Liwa oasis Yaw Sahhab Harris 1998
Abu Dhabi Dalma Hellyer 1993, Flavin and Shepherd 1994
islands Marawah King 1998, Hellyer 1998b-c
Abu Dhabi airport Hellyer 1998b

38. BEFORE THEEMIRATES
Whether or not these groups were fully sedentary is unknown. A transhumant pattern of
occupation along the coasts in the winter, when fishing (Desse 1995, Hellyer 1998a) and
shellfish gathering would have been the main pursuits, and summer residence in the interior,
when pastoralism and, eventually, horticulture, were practised, is entirely feasible and well-
attested elsewhere in south-eastern Arabia (Lancaster and Lancaster 1992: p 345), if as yet
unproven for the prehistoric UAE. Certainly this would account for the fact that coastal sites,
which usually contain some areas of shell midden formation, are generally not very deep, and
interior sites generally have little if any stratification. It would also account for the uniformity
in the tool-kit evidenced in both the coast and the interior of the UAE.
As yet we know little about the people who inhabited the territory of the UAE at this time.
Burials in an Arabian bifacial site along the coast of the Umm al-Qaiwain lagoon have been
excavated but not yet published (C.S. Phillips, pers. comm.). At al-Buhais 18, H.-P. and M.
Uerpmann are excavating an important aceramic site with an extensive graveyard at the foot
of Jebel Buhais which dates to c. 4700 BC where the remains of domesticated sheep, goat
and cattle, as well as a tool-kit of Arabian bifacial type, have been found (Uerpmann, Uerpmann
and Jasim, in press; Kieswetter, Uerpmann and Jasim, in press).
The Late Fourth and Early Third Millennium (c. 3100–2500 BC)
At the end of the fourth millennium, c. 3100–3000 BC, a major suite of innovations appeared
in the material culture inventory of the region. For the first time collective burials in the form
of above-ground tombs (Fig. 3) built of unworked stone appear at two sites in the UAE, Jebel
Hafit (including Mazyad) and Jebel al-Emalah. Named after the site where they were first
discovered, these ‘Hafit’-type tombs are completely without precedent in the local archaeo-
logical sequence. What is more, a number of them have yielded small, biconical ceramic
vessels, many so badly preserved as to have lost their original surfaces, but on some of which
a panel of painted, geometric decoration in black can still be seen (Potts 1986a). Not only are
these vessels (Fig. 3) superficially reminiscent of so-called ‘Jamdat Nasr’pottery from southern
Mesopotamia, but analyses of examples from both Jebel Hafit (Méry 1991: p 72; Méry and
Schneider 1996) and Jebel al-Emalah (unpubl.) have confirmed that this material was imported,
some of it from the type site Jamdat Nasr in south-central Iraq.
Because of the fact that most of the Hafit tombs in the UAE were robbed in antiquity little
data is available on their occupants (but cf. Højgaard 1985), and it is difficult to get a good
idea of just how many people were normally buried within them. More than one is probably
all that can be said at the moment, but, given the restricted size of their keyhole-like interior
chambers, it cannot have been greater than perhaps a dozen or so. Around the keyhole a large
area of mounded, unworked rock was heaped up, sometimes with a discernible ‘bench’
encircling the exterior. Whereas the tombs at Jebel Hafit range in size from an estimated 7 to
11 m in diameter (Frifelt 1971: p 377), the Jebel al-Emalah examples are approximately 11
to 12 m across (Benton and Potts 1994). In addition to their pottery, other imported finds of
note include a class of roughly square, bone or ivory beads with two diagonal perforations.
These find identical parallels in Iran at Susa, Tepe Hissar and Tepe Yahya and in Mesopotamia
at Uruk, always in contexts dating to c. 3000 BC (Frifelt 1980: Pl. XVa; Potts 1993a: p 183
for full refs.).
37

39. To date the settlements of the population buried in the Hafit tombs of south-eastern Arabia
(examples are also found further south in Oman) have yet to be discovered. Although it has
been argued by S. Cleuziou that the occupation of the settlement at Hili 8 in Al Ain began
c. 3100 BC (Cleuziou 1996) there are good grounds for questioning this early date. Thus, it
is striking that the two radiocarbon determinations on which this contention is based (MC–2266
and 2267) are roughly 500 years earlier than the next earliest date from the site and, moreover,
both of these early dates derive from samples of wood charcoal (Potts 1997a). As experience
has shown at other sites, radiocarbon determinations run on charcoal are often anomalously
early because the wood in question was old by the time it was burned. Thus, for example, a
ship’s timber or architectural beam may have been used initially, re-cycled several times, and
finally burned as fuel hundreds of years after its initial employment, unlike dates, fruit pips,
matting, and other organic materials which have a much more finite lifespan. If we discount
Hili 8 as a settlement which may have existed in tandem with the period in which the graves
on the slopes of Jebel Hafit were built, we are left with no settlements with which to pair these
important funerary monuments.
The question naturally arises why and how the contact which transmitted the Jamdat Nasr
vessels from Mesopotamia to the Oman peninsula was organized. In most discussions of this
phenomenon an economic motivation is ascribed to the Mesopotamian bearers of the Jamdat
Nasr-type ceramics and beads which have appeared at Jebel Hafit and Jebel al-Emalah. What
resources they may have been in search of is unknown, but it is generally admitted that copper
from the Hajar Mountains is a likely candidate. Certainly small pins and awls of copper have
been found in Hafit burials (Frifelt 1971), but it cannot always be assumed that these date to
the original period in which these tombs were used, and at both Jebel Hafit and Jebel al-
Emalah we have ample evidence for the later re-use of the tombs during the third, second and
first millennia BC and, at the latter site, as late as the fifth or sixth century AD (see below).
38
U
NITEDARABEMIRATES: A NEWPERSPECTIVE
a b
c d
e
Fig. 3. Selected examples of Jamdat Nasr-type pottery (a-d) from Hafit-type tombs at Jebel Hafit excavated
by the Danish expedition and a plan of one of the tombs (6.4 m. in diameter) excavated by the French
mission (e). After Frifelt 1971: Figs. 12A, 17A, 22B and 22A; and Cleuziou et al. 1978: Pl. 15.

40. 39
B
EFORE THEEMIRATES
More relevant, perhaps, is the fact that the earliest proto-cuneiform texts from Uruk in southern
Mesopotamia which date to c. 3400–3000 BC – the so-called ‘Archaic Texts’ from Uruk –
already contain references to ‘Dilmun’ copper. Dilmun was later identified with mainland
eastern Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, but as there is no copper in either of these areas it has
usually been assumed that the copper in question must have come from further afield. On
analogy with the situation in the late third and second millennia BC the copper source most
often invoked is that which stretches from Fujairah in the north (Hassan and al-Sulaimi 1979)
to lower Oman in the south. Thus, although there is no proof as yet, it has generally been
assumed that the motivation behind the Jamdat Nasr-period contact between the UAE and
southern Mesopotamia was the incipient trade in copper.
The Mid to Late Third Millennium (c. 2500–2000 BC)
The agricultural settlement of south-eastern Arabia was predicated upon the domestication
of the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera). Without the date palm, the shade necessary for the
growth of other, less hardy cultivars, including cereals, vegetables and fruits, was lacking.
Once the bustan-type of garden came into existence, watered by wells which tapped the relatively
abundant and shallow lenses of sweet water found throughout much of the UAE, the basis
was laid for the development of the kind of oasis living (Cleuziou 1996) which is so charac-
teristic of the wadi and piedmont settlements of the region. Herd animals, such as sheep, goat
and cattle, of course played a part in the development of a full oasis economy, but no single
species was so critical in this process as the date palm.
The earliest villages of the UAE were thus agriculturally based, and perhaps, in order to
safeguard their investment in land, water and natural resources, the inhabitants of those villages
felt compelled to construct imposing fortifications. These buildings appear for the first time
in the middle of the third millennium and are an architectural leit-fossil of the so-called ‘Umm
al-Nar’ (Umm an-Nar) period (c. 2500–2000 BC). Like their later descendants at sites such
as Nizwa in Oman, the fortress-towers of
south-eastern Arabia took the form of
raised, circular platforms consisting of
massive crosswalls and intervening
hollows filled with gravel, the
entirety of which supported a
surface raised up off the ground (by
as much as 8 m) with a still higher,
outer wall for defence. Undoubtedly
small buildings stood upon these
raised platforms as well. Every
example excavated to date is also
distinguished by the presence of a
Fig. 4. The Umm al-Nar-period
fortress-tower of Hili 1, 24 m. in
diameter. After Frifelt 1975: Fig. 3.

41. well in the centre of the building, and it may be justifiably asked whether or not the entire
fortress is not a ‘lock’placed upon the precious water supply of the village in which the fortress
was located.
In the UAE, examples of such Umm al-Nar fortress-towers have been excavated at Hili 1
(Fig. 4), Hili 8 (Cleuziou 1989, 1996), Bidiyah (Al Tikriti 1989), Tell Abraq (Potts 1990a,
1991a, 1993b, 1995a, 2000 a-b) and Kalba (C.S. Phillips, pers. comm.). Whereas most of
these range in size between 16 and 25 m in diameter, the tower at Tell Abraq, at 40 m in
diameter, is by far the largest yet uncovered. The social and political implications of these
towers are intriguing. There is no longer any doubt that, by the late third millennium BC, the
Oman peninsula was identified in Mesopotamian cuneiform sources as Magan(Sumerian)
or Makkan(Akkadian). In addition to safeguarding the agricultural settlements in their environs,
the towers of the Umm al-Nar period
may also have been the power centres
for the ‘lords of Magan’ against whom
several of the Old Akkadian emperors,
including Manishtusu and Naram-Sin,
campaigned in the twenty-third century
BC (Potts 1986b,). Manishtusu’s
allusion to campaigning against no
fewer than 32 ‘lords of Magan’ implies
a decentralized political landscape at
the time, and one can well imagine a
situation in which petty lords, each in
control of a certain amount of territory
centred around a primary settlement
(such as Tell Abraq, Bidiyah, Hili, etc.)
dominated by a fortress-tower, banded
together to repulse the Akkadian
invasion of Magan. It should also be
noted that unfortified settlements of a
more ephemeral nature have also been discovered, particularly along the Gulf coast (e.g. at
Ghanadha, see Al Tikriti 1985; al-Sufouh, see Benton 1996; at al-Dur (ed-Dur), see Boucharlat
et al. 1988: pp 2–3; Abu Dhabi airport, see de Cardi 1997; and Umm al-Nar, Frifelt 1991).
In general, the dead of the Umm al-Nar period were buried in circular, stone tombs faced
with finely-masoned ashlar blocks, although rectangular chambers, perhaps for secondary
reburial of bone from circular tombs which had become full, are also known (Haerinck 1990-
91). Examples of Umm al-Nar circular tombs were first encountered by a Danish expedition
on the island of Umm al-Nar in Abu Dhabi in 1958 (Frifelt 1991). Thus it was that the island
gave its name to the period of which these tombs are characteristic. Umm al-Nar-type tombs
range in size from c. 4 m to 12 m in diameter. Internally, the structures have a variable config-
uration of crosswalls which may either be free-standing, bounded on each end by a passage
leading from one half of the tomb to the other, or joined to the external tomb wall, dividing
the interior of the tomb into two halves without access to each other. By 1995, examples of
Umm al-Nar tombs (Fig. 5) had been excavated in both coastal and inland Abu Dhabi (Umm
40
U
NITEDARABEMIRATES: A NEWPERSPECTIVE
Fig. 5. The Umm al-Nar-type tomb at al-Sufouh, 6 m in
diameter. After Benton 1996.

42. 41
B
EFORE THEEMIRATES
al-Nar island, Hili area), Dubai (al-Sufouh and Hatta), Ajman (Moweihat), Umm al-Qaiwain
(Tell Abraq), and Ra’s al-Khaimah (Shimal, Wadi Munay’i). The better-preserved examples
show that literally hundreds of individuals were buried in these tombs along with a wide range
of grave furniture, including soft-stone bowls (David 1990, 1996); fine and domestic black-
on-red ceramics (Fig. 6) of local manufacture (Frifelt 1990; Méry 1997); incised grey and
painted black-on-grey pottery (Fig. 6) from south-eastern Iran or Baluchistan (Cleuziou and
Vogt 1985; Benton 1996; Potts 2000, in press a); copper-bronze weaponry (daggers, spearheads;
Potts 1998; Pedersen and Buchwald 1991; Weeks 1997, 1999, 2000, on Umm al-Nar-period
metallurgy); personal items of jewellery such as bracelets and necklaces incorporating thousands
of beads, a significant proportion of which are Harappan paste micro-beads from the Indus
Valley (Benton 1996); and other exotic items such as ivory combs (Potts 1993d; Potts 2000
a-b), gypsum lamps (Potts 1995a), and linen (Reade and Potts 1993).
Like their Hafit counterparts, many Umm al-Nar-period tombs were robbed in antiquity,
but those excavated at Umm al-Nar, Hili North (Tomb A), Tell Abraq, Shimal, Moweihat and
al-Sufouh have yielded substantial quantities of human skeletal remains which are beginning
to provide important evidence on the diet and health of the late third millennium population
ba
c
d
e
f
g
Fig. 6. A selection of Umm al-Nar-period pottery from the tomb at al-Sufouh, including black-on-grey
(a-b), incised grey (c), fine tan with raised meandering ridge (d), and fine black-on-orange (e-g). After
Benton 1996.

43. of the Oman peninsula (Blau 1996, 1998; Blau and Beech 1999). Furthermore, they reveal
that all age grades, from foetal infants to elderly adults, were interred together in these tombs.
One of the most intriguing questions concerns the relationship between the individuals buried
in the different chambers of a tomb. Recent analyses of the epigenetic traits on teeth (cf.
Højgaard 1980) from three of the tombs excavated by the Danish expedition on Umm al-Nar
indeed supports the idea that the individuals buried within a single tomb were genetically
related, probably representing members of closely inter-married families (Alt, Vach, Frifelt
and Kunter 1995).
Palaeopathological inferences can also be drawn from an analysis of Umm al-Nar-period
skeletal remains. At Tell Abraq, for example, A. Goodman and D. Martin have studied
thousands of bones from a minimum of 394 individuals (Potts 2000b) interred in a tomb dating
to c. 2100–2000 B.C. (Potts and Weeks 1999). Some of the preliminary conclusions of their
work may be summarized as follows:
Periostitis and osteomyelitis, both of which result from non-specific infections such as
staph and strep, are found on roughly half of the tibia recovered. Signs of trauma in
the form of healed and unhealed lesions (mainly on the hands, ribs, and forearms) and
osteochondritis dessicans (lesions which develop
in response to trauma to joint systems) were
detected on roughly 5% of all skeletal elements.
Osteoarthritis was found in a significant
proportion of the adult population. Fluorosis
(exaggerated bone formation at muscle and
ligament attachments) and anemia of unknown
origin leading to perotic hyperostosis (thickening
of the cranium) were also found. Turning to the
dental evidence, fluorosis is suggested by dental
mottling in a large portion of the dental finds.
Attrition was extremely severe, as was caries in
certain individuals, and enamel hypoplasisas
(severe enamel growth disruption due to
infection) were common among children (Potts
1993b: p 121).
Perhaps most surprising in the tomb at Tell Abraq
was the discovery, amongst otherwise disarticulated
bone, of a unique, fully articulated female aged c.
20. ‘Abnormal upward curvature of the spine of
about 30˚ beyond normal, early osteoarthritis
changes in the right knee and ankle, a mild deformity
of the left foot and mild changes in the right foot’
suggest that ‘the female was sedentary, overused
her right leg and had a neuromuscular imbalance of
the lower left leg. It further suggests the individual
suffered from a neurological disease of several years’
42
U
NITEDARABEMIRATES: A NEWPERSPECTIVE
a
b
Fig. 7. An Early Dynastic III-type,
Mesopotamian storage jar from
Grave 1 (a) and a cylinder seal-
impressed sherd (b) from the
settlement on Umm al-Nar. After
Frifelt 1991: Fig. 86 and 1995:
Fig. 255.

44. duration which led to partial crippling’(‘At
Tell Abraq . . .’ 1994). After considerable
consultation with a wide range of
specialists, D. Martin has confirmed that
poliomyelitis is the most likely diagnosis,
making this the earliest recorded instance
of polio ever confirmed in the archaeo-
logical record anywhere in the world.
Mention was made above of contact
between late third millennium Magan and
the Old Akkadian empire. Not only are
these connections attested to in cuneiform
sources, but complementary archaeological
evidence exists in the form of large,
buffware storage jars from Umm al-Nar
island (Fig. 7), confirmed by analysis to be
Mesopotamian (Mynors 1983), and a seal-
impressed jar fragment of Syrian provenance (Amiet 1975, 1985). This material indicates the
transport of a liquid, perhaps oil, from Mesopotamia to Umm al-Nar island at this time. Contacts
were also maintained in other directions as well. The incised grey and painted black-on-grey
wares from numerous Umm al-Nar tombs were manufactured in southern Iran and/or
Baluchistan (Blackman et al. 1989) while painted brown-on-buff pottery of Kaftari type from
the tombs at Tell Abraq and Shimal/Unar 2 indicate contacts with the Elamite region of
southwestern Iran (Potts 2000a: pp 116–117, in press a). Settlements such as Tell Abraq, Hili
8, and Asimah (in Ra’s al-Khaimah) have yielded diagnostic examples of black-washed, finely
levigated, thick micaceous orange ware which comes from the Indus Valley (Cleuziou 1992:
p 97; Potts 1994c: p 617 and Fig. 53.3). These certainly represent fragments of storage jars,
suggesting that something was being exported from the Harappan world to the Gulf in bulk.
It has recently been posited that a milk-product, perhaps a sort of cheese, was the commodity
in question (Gouin 1990: pp 48–49). The presence of diagnostically Harappan etched carnelian
beads, as well as thousands of paste micro-beads, and cubical chert weights with identical
parallels at all of the major Harappan sites, and small objects of ivory, also implies contact
with the Indus Valley in the late third millennium. Finally, a unique ivory comb (Fig. 8) from the
tomb at Tell Abraq can be reliably identified on the basis of its particular floral decoration as an
import from Bactria (northern Afghanistan/southern Uzbekistan) (Potts 1993d, 2000a: p126).
Excavations at Asimah in the interior of Ra’s al-Khaimah have revealed the existence of
stone alignments consisting of raised platforms and subterranean graves which, on the basis
of their associated finds, also date to the Umm al-Nar period (Vogt 1994a: pp 101ff; Görsdorf
and Vogt, in press). These monuments, which have been compared with the triliths and
alignments of southern and western Arabia, suggest that a degree of cultural diversity existed
in late third millennium south-eastern Arabia which has yet to be adequately investigated.
43
B
EFORE THEEMIRATES
Fig. 8. The ivory comb from the late Umm al-
Nar-period tomb at Tell Abraq.

45. The Early and Middle Second Millennium (c. 2000–1200 BC)
For many years it was thought that a major discontinuity occurred in the archaeological
sequence of the Oman peninsula at the end of the third millennium This was speculatively
linked to disruptions in the Indus Valley, where the Mature Harappan period came to an end
and the Post-Harappan or Late Harappan era began. In the Indus Valley these changes were
long attributed to the Aryan invasion, but this explanation has fallen out of favour with most
scholars and remains purely conjectural. The absence of direct references to Magan in
Mesopotamian cuneiform sources after the Ur III period (2100–2000 BC) also led scholars
to speculate that the alleged Aryan invasion may have caused further disruptions, via a sort
of cultural ‘ripple effect’, in south-eastern Arabia. The settlement record of the region seemed
to evaporate, leaving very few sites occupied on anything like a full-time basis, and making
it difficult to find the habitations of the many individuals buried in the collective, second
millennium tombs of the sort first found at Shimal, but known by the name ‘Wadi Suq’ after
a site in Oman first investigated by Karen Frifelt (Frifelt 1975: pp 377–378). Finally, the
notion that the camel (Camelus dromedarius ) was domesticated sometime in the second
millennium gave rise to theories of a reversion to full-time nomadism after the Umm al-Nar
period, leading some scholars to view the ‘Wadi Suq period’ (c. 2000–1300 BC) as a cultural
‘dark age’ in the region (cf. the discussion in Potts 1993c: pp 427–435).
It remains true today that the absolute number of early second millennium settlements in
the UAE and Oman is not great, but on those which have been investigated, such as Tell
Abraq, Kalba 4 (Carter 1997), and from the surface indications at a site like Nud Ziba in Ra’s
al-Khaimah (Kennet and Velde 1995), some population centres continued to be inhabited on
a full-time basis and show no signs of a cultural ‘decline’. At Tell Abraq, for example, the
large fortress-tower of the Umm al-Nar period continued in use down to the middle of the
second millennium, with modifications to the outer walls and the construction of new buildings
on the interior. Apart from these architectural modifications, there is a major change detectable
in the diet of the site’s inhabitants, with marine resources (fish and shellfish) becoming more
important than they had been in the late third millennium and accounting for about 50 per
cent of all dietary requirements (Potts 1995a: p 96). A similar swing from the exploitation of
terrestrial fauna (sheep, goat, cattle) to marine resources has also been observed at Shimal as
one moves from the earlier to the later second millennium (Grupe and Schutkowski 1989;
Von den Driesch 1994; Glover 1998). However, domesticated camel is not attested until the
Iron Age and Wadi Suq camel ‘nomadism’cannot be invoked as an explanation for the changes
in material culture – particularly in the ceramic repertoire – which characterize the period.
Moreover, both Tell Abraq and Nud Ziba (Kennet and Velde 1995) provide examples of ceramics
which are clearly transitional between Umm al-Nar and classic Wadi Suq types, suggesting
that the change from one period to the next was evolutionary rather than revolutionary.
The later Wadi Suq levels at Tell Abraq are paralleled by the occupation of the settlement
at Shimal in Ra’s al-Khaimah, where an area of habitation at the base of the Hajar Mountains,
and within sight of an ancient mangrove lagoon, was located (Vogt and Franke-Vogt 1987;
Velde 1990, 1991, 1992). Shimal, and the nearby sites of Ghalilah and Dhayah are, however,
better known for the many collective tombs of the Wadi Suq period located there (Vogt
1998). These belong to a number of different formal types. All are constructed of unworked
44
U
NITEDARABEMIRATES: A NEWPERSPECTIVE

46. 45
B
EFORE THEEMIRATES
boulders and wadi pebbles, often of massive size.
Unlike their Umm al-Nar counterparts, which
were round, the Wadi Suq tombs were generally
oval. The simplest ‘Shimal’ type is an elongated
oval enclosure which can be up to 30 m long and
roughly 2 m wide (e.g. in the case of Bidiyah 1;
see Al Tikriti 1989: 102ff; for Sharm, see Riley
and Petrie 1999) with an entrance in one of the
long sides. The ‘Ghalilah’type is constructed like
a broad oval with a central, freestanding wall in
the interior. This is used to support the capstones,
the ends of which rest on the upper surface of the
outer and inner walls. Finally, the ‘Khatt’ type
resembles a Shimal-type tomb with an entrance
at one end which is enclosed by an outer wall,
thus consisting of two burial spaces, the interior
chamber of the ‘Shimal’-type structure and a
corridor running around its perimeter (Potts
1990b/I: Fig. 28). At Asimah, in the interior of
Ra’s al-Khaimah, a number of graves with second
millennium finds (e.g. As 13) have been excavated
which represent a type previously unattested in
the region (Vogt 1994a: p 41). These are notable
by virtue of their oval shape, marked by a stone
wall on the surface, which encloses a subterranean
burial chamber, not unlike the original Wadi Suq
graves investigated by Frifelt in the 1970s. Many
Wadi Suq-period tombs have also recently been
excavated at Jebel Buhais, south of Mleiha in the
interior of Sharjah, and at Khor Fakkan, on the
East Coast of the country (S. Jasim, pers. comm.).
a
a b
d ec
Fig. 9. Plans of the tombs at Dhayah 2 (a)
and Bithna (b). After Kästner 1990: Abb. 4,
and Corboud 1990: Fig. 4.
Fig. 10. Socketed spearheads of the Wadi Suq
period from Dhayah 2 (a-b), and cairn 2 at
Jebel Hafit (e). After Kästner 1990: Abb. 6;
Vogt and Franke-Vogt 1987: Fig. 21.5-6;
and Cleuziou et al. 1979: Pl. 16.1.
b

47. 46
U
NITEDARABEMIRATES: A NEWPERSPECTIVE
Subterranean, horse-shoe-shaped tombs in the Wadi al-Qawr of southern Ra’s al-Khaimah
(Phillips 1987) and the Qidfa oasis of Fujairah (unpublished but on display in the Fujairah
Museum) must also be dated to the Wadi Suq period. Although previously attributed to the
Iron Age (e.g. Potts 1990b/I: p 364), it is now clear from the finds made at Qidfa that the
original construction and use of these tombs dates to the second millennium, and that the
classic Iron Age material found within them represents the secondary reuse of these structures
at a much later date. Subterranean, T-shaped tombs (Fig. 9), such as those excavated at Dhayah
(Kästner 1990, 1991) and Bithna (Corboud 1990; Corboud et al. 1996) also date to the Wadi
Suq period. Finally, individual inhumation graves dug into the sabkhaat al-Qusais (Taha
1982–1983), a suburb to the east of Dubai, include many of Wadi Suq date.
The Wadi Suq period is notable for the explosion in metallurgy witnessed at this time. Although
often robbed in antiquity, some Wadi Suq tombs, such as the horseshoe-shaped structure at
Qidfa, have yielded literally hundreds of weapons and vessels (Weeks 2000a-b). Where the
Umm al-Nar period was characterized by daggers and spears, the Wadi Suq period witnessed
the introduction of the long sword, the bow and arrow (for incised Wadi Suq arrowheads, see
Magee 1998b), and a new, light type of socketed spearhead (Fig. 10). These innovations in
weaponry are clearly significant for an understanding of Wadi Suq-period society (Potts
1998a). The long swords of Qidfa, al-Qusais, Qarn Bint Saud Grave 3 (Lombard 1979: Pl.
LI.1-4; Vogt 1985: Taf. 122.1-4) and Qattarah (Lombard 1979: Pl. LI.5-6) are double-edged
weapons with a raised, central midrib and a concave butt-end marked by rivet holes for the
attachment of a separate hilt. The double cutting-edge implies that these were thrusting
weapons, and the lack of a well-attached hilt means that they would have been poor devices
for slashing. Judging by the light weight of Wadi Suq socketed spearheads, it can be suggested
that they were to be used on throwing spears. Acomparison with the cuneiform evidence from
third millennium Ebla, in Syria, shows that many of the Wadi Suq spearheads are within the
weight range of the light throwing spears used there (63.2–79 g.), whereas none of them attain
the weight of the heavier points mounted on thrusting lances which were used by foot soldiers
at Ebla and weighed approximately 237–474 g. each (Waetzoldt 1990: p 2). The appearance
of these weapons, along with hundreds of cast bronze, lanceolate arrowheads with a raised,
flattened midrib, suggest an evolution in the technology of warfare during the second millennium
unprecedented in the earlier archaeological record of the region.
a
b
c
d e
In the late third millennium an industry arose in the manufacture of soft-stone vessels –
generally bowls, beakers and compartmented boxes – decorated with dotted-circles made
using a bow drill. During the Wadi Suq period the numbers of soft-stone vessels deposited in
tombs increased vastly and new shapes, along with the addition of incised diagonal and
horizontal lines in clusters (Fig. 11), allow us to easily separate the later soft-stone vessels
from their third millennium forerunners (Häser 1988, 1990a, 1990b).
Fig. 11. Wadi Suq-period soft-stone vessels from Shimal
tomb 6 (a-e). After de Cardi 1988: Fig. 12.

48. 47
B
EFORE THEEMIRATES
The continuities visible in settlement at a site like Tell Abraq – in metallurgical technology;
in the manufacture of stone vessels, and in the ceramic industry – all point to the obvious
conclusion that the Umm al-Nar/Wadi Suq divide, however real archaeologically, was not a
complete rupture. We have little evidence of the people themselves from this era, largely
because of the poor state of preservation of most of the skeletal remains excavated to date,
and the lack of publication of such important complexes as Qidfa and Qattarah. The skeletal
material from the tombs at Shimal was highly fragmentary (Wells 1984, 1985; Schutkowski
and Herrmann 1987) but studies of the teeth have shown that the population there showed
low rates of molar attrition, suggestive of a low ‘intake of dried fish, more efficient grain
grinding or sieving, or less grain intake’ which may reflect a diet heavily dependent on fresh
fish and shellfish; low rates of caries, suggesting ‘that fermentable carbohydrates [e.g. dates]
did not play a large role’ in the diet; high rates of calculus formation, associated with other
dental pathologies, such as caries-induced abscessing, which ‘most probably reflect different
dietary constituents, food preparation techniques, or levels of oral hygiene’ vis-à-vis other
populations in the region; and moderate to severe ante-mortem tooth loss, ‘possibly due to
inflammation of the periodontium caused by extensive calculus’(Littleton and Frøhlich 1993:
pp 440–444).
Some indication of an accumulation of wealth during the Wadi Suq period is provided by
an interesting class of gold and electrum plaques in the form of two animals, standing back
a b
c
d
Fig. 12. Wadi
Suq-period gold
and/or electrum
animal plaques
from Bidiyah (a)
and Qattarah (b-
d). After Al Tikriti
1989: Pl. 74.

49. to back, often with their tails curled up in a spiral. Examples (Fig. 12) are now known from
Dhayah (Kästner 1990: Taf. 40, 1991: Fig. 6a), Qattarah (Potts, 1990b/I: Pl. IX), and Bidiyah
(Al Tikriti 1989: Pls. 74A, 95B). Some of that wealth may have been accumulated through
long-distance trade in copper, a commodity for which Dilmun (modern Bahrain) became
famous as a retailer to the southern Mesopotamian market city of Ur in the early second
millennium. The discovery at Tell Abraq of over 600 sherds of Barbar red-ridged pottery,
now shown to be compositionally identical to the pottery from the settlement at Saar on
Bahrain (Grave et al. 1996b) and on the island of Balghelam, Abu Dhabi (Hellyer, pers.
comm.), points to the clear existence of contacts in that direction, as does the recovery of
Barbar pottery at Kalba on the East Coast (Méry, Phillips and Calvet 1998). Moreover, both
Tell Abraq (Potts 1994c) and
Shimal (de Cardi 1988: Fig. 11)
have Post-Harappan pottery in
early second millennium contexts
which reflect the ongoing
existence of contacts with the
Indus Valley at this time.
From the Late Second to
the Late First Millennium
(c. 1200–300 BC)
Two innovations occurred in the
late second millennium which were
to revolutionize the economies of
south-eastern Arabia. The domesti-
cation of the camel, attested by the
end of the second millennium at Tell Abraq (Stephan 1995), opened up new possibilities for
land transport, while the discovery of the principles of using sub-surface water channels for
the transportation of water from aquifers to gardens – so-called falaj irrigation – made possible
the extensive irrigation of gardens and agricultural plots which resulted in a veritable explosion
of settlement across the Oman peninsula (Potts 1990b/I: pp 390–392).
In conformity with usage elsewhere in Western Asia, particularly Iran, the period from c. 1200
to 300 BC has traditionally been referred to as the ‘Iron Age’. No term could be less appropriate,
however, for in south-eastern Arabia iron was not widely used until the following period, except
at Muwailah in the interior of Sharjah where iron weaponry has been found which, however, is
likely to have been imported from Iran (Magee 1998c). Nevertheless, it is convenient to term
this era the Iron Age, particularly when referring to comparable sites and finds from other areas,
such as Baluchistan, Iran, and Mesopotamia. Based on the evidence from Tell Abraq, the Iron
Age sequence in the UAE can be divided into three sub-periods, labelled Iron I (1200–1000
BC), II (1000–600 BC) and III (600–300 BC) (Magee 1995, Magee 1997). With the exception
of a tomb at Asimah (As 100) which contains Iron I material (Vogt 1994a: pp 81ff), all of the
evidence for Early Iron Age occupation comes from Shimal, Tell Abraq and al-Hamriyah on
48
U
NITEDARABEMIRATES: A NEWPERSPECTIVE
Fig. 13. Half of a bivalve (Marcia) shell from an Early Iron
Age (Iron I) context at Tell Abraq containing atacamite, a
cuprous pigment widely used as eye-makeup in antiquity.

50. the Gulf coast, and Kalba on the East Coast. Fish and shellfish continued to be important in the
diet of the Iron I inhabitants, although domesticated sheep, goat and cattle were kept, and gazelle,
oryx, dugong, turtle and cormorant were exploited as well (Stephan 1995; Magee 1995: p 269).
Domesticated wheat and barley were cultivated at this time (Willcox and Tengberg 1995; Davis
1998), and the date palm remained as important as ever. The ceramics of the Iron I period show
clear signs of continuity with the latest Wadi Suq material (Magee and Carter 1999; Magee et
al. 1998), and are in general very coarse, grit-tempered, handmade wares, often in large, open
bowl and vat-like shapes (Potts 1990a: pp 103–109). Half of a bivalve shell (Marcia hiantina)
from an Iron I context at the site was found by x-ray powder diffraction analysis to contain
atacamite (Fig. 13), a cuprous pigment widely used in the ancient world as eye make-up (Thomas
and Potts 1996). Similar pigment shells have also been found in the late Wadi Suq tomb at Sharm
which was re-used during the Iron Age (Masia 2000).
The Iron II period is the ‘classic’Iron Age in the UAE and is attested at a number of extensively
excavated sites with substantial mudbrick architecture such as Rumeilah, Bint Saud, Hili 2,
Hili 14 and Hili 17 in the Al Ain area (Boucharlat and Lombard 1985; Magee et al. 1998); al-
Thuqaibah and Umm Safah on the al-Madam plain (Benoist, Cordoba and Mouton 1997); and
Muwailah (Magee 1998a, 1998c, 1999a, 1999b; Müller 1999) in the sandy desertic area near
the Sharjah International Airport. Many other sites, both graves and settlements, have been
located, and it is estimated that at least 150 sites of this period have been documented in the
UAE and neighbouring Oman. The explosion in settlement at this time is generally attributed
to the invention of falajirrigation technology, and cultivation using the hoe may be inferred
from the recovery of a bronze hoe-blade at Rumeilah (Boucharlat and Lombard 1985: Pl. 72.7;
Weisgerber 1988: Pl. 161; Potts 1994a).
It is interesting to note that the Iron II period also witnessed the appearance of fortified
strongholds, such as Hili 14 in Al Ain (Boucharlat and Lombard 1989), Husn Madhab and
Husn Awhala in Fujairah (Hellyer 1993b; Potts et al. 1996; Petrie 1998), Jebel Buhais north
of al-Madam (Boucharlat 1992), and Rafaq in the Wadi al-Qawr (Phillips 1997). The purpose
of these fortresses, it may be argued, was to safeguard the agricultural settlements associated
with them, particularly their precious aflaj, and the concentration of power in such centres is
an important social and political phenomenon. A cuneiform inscription from Nineveh in
Assyria speaks of the existence of at least one ‘king’ in the Oman peninsula at this time, an
individual named Pade, king of Qade, who lived at Is-ki-e (modern Izki in Oman) and sent
tribute to the Assyrian emperor Assurbanipal in or around 640 BC (Potts 1990b/I: p 393).
Political and economic control by central bodies may also be implied by the appearance at
this time of a tradition of stamp seal manufacture (Lombard 1998), evidenced at a number of
sites including Rumeilah (Boucharlat and Lombard 1985: Pl. 66.5–9), Tell Abraq (Potts 1991a:
Fig. 135) and Bint Saud (Stevens 1992). Contacts with foreign regions are suggested by a
soft-stone pendant from Tell Abraq (Potts 1991a: Figs. 136–137) which shows a figure
reminiscent of the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian depictions of the lamashtudemoness,
an evil spirit who spread disease, and it is most probable that such pendants were worn to
protect their owners from sickness. The same figure appears in some of the petroglyphs found
pecked on rock in the mountains of Fujairah (Ziolkowski 1998; cf. Ceuninck 1998; Haerinck
1998c). Some indication of how such foreign contacts were effected is given by another pendant
from Tell Abraq which shows the only Iron Age depiction of a boat in the Oman peninsula
49
B
EFORE THEEMIRATES

51. 50
U
NITEDARABEMIRATES: A NEWPERSPECTIVE
(Potts 1991a: Figs. 142–143). In this case the boat appears to be a square-sterned vessel with a
sharp bow and triangular sail (Potts 1995b: p 564). The sail is obviously similar to the Arab lateen
sail, otherwise unattested in the region until the Sasanian period and absent in the Mediterranean
until c. 900 AD. The Tell Abraq pendant is thus the earliest depiction of a lateen sail yet discovered.
Afurther link with Assyria (and western Iran) is provided by a class of decorated discs,
sometimes described as buttons or buckles, which have been found in a number of Iron Age
inhumations in the region, e.g. at Dibba and Qarn Bint Saud (Frifelt 1971: Fig. 11) and Shimal
(Vogt and Franke-Vogt 1987: Fig. 18.1-4) and which are strikingly similar to examples known
from the Assyrian capital of Nimrud in eighth to seventh century BC. Recently discovered
examples in a re-used Wadi Suq tomb at Sharm (Hartnell and Barker 1999) have been shown,
upon examination by a scanning electron microscope, to have the internal structure of dentine,
corresponding not with a shell but with the lower incisor of a large mammal, such as a camel
(Davis 1999a; Susino 1999).
The third and final sub-period of the Iron Age, Iron III, is not very well known, although
occupation is attested at half a dozen settlements including Tell Abraq, Shimal, Rumeilah, Hili
17, Hili 2, Nud Ziba and al-Thuqaibah (Magee 1995: p 345), as well as graves in the Wadi al-
Qawr (unpubl., in the Ra’s al-Khaimah Museum) and Dibba oasis (unpubl., in the Fujairah
Museum). The appearance of previously unattested shapes in so-called ‘Burnished Maroon
Slipped Ware’ is significant, for this material, almost certainly imported from Iran, finds close
parallels at a number of Iranian sites, including Baba Jan, Godin Tepe, Nad-i Ali, Dahan-i
Gulaiman, Tal-i Zohak, and Pasargadae, in contexts dating to between the sixth and fourth
centuries BC (Magee 1995: pp 182–183). When combined with the literary and epigraphic
record of Achaemenid control over the satrapy of Maka (cf. Makkan, Magan), the conclusion
becomes inescapable that the sudden appearance in the UAE of ceramics paralleled in
Achaemenid contexts in Iran is a reflection of the fact that the area was at this time
part of the Persian satrapy of Maka (Potts 1990b/I: 394ff; de Blois 1989). In spite
of the fact that messengers from Maka, some of whom are referred to as ‘Arabs’,
are attested in the Persepolis Fortification Texts (PF 1545, 2050; PFa 17, 29) in
the year 505/4 BC, as are rations for the satrap of Maka (PF 679–680) in the
abc de
Fig. 14. Examples of Iron Age
short swords from al-Qusais (a-e) and a
depiction of a Ma˘ciya, or native of Maka, from
the base of the throne of Darius II on his grave relief at Persepolis.
After Lombard 1985: Fig. 107.374–378 and Potts 1985: Fig. 1a.

52. Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content

53. Seattle Coal
and Iron
Company.
Seven seams.
Details.
Good coal.
Another good
coal seam.
No shipments have yet been made from Squak Creek, Raging River, or Snoqualmie Mountain, but active
developing work has been in progress since September last at the Gilman Mines (forty miles from
Seattle), and shipping will begin shortly. A switch of only 600 yards in length is required from the main
line of railway to reach the outcrop of the coal, and there is every natural advantage for mining.
The Seattle Coal and Iron Company own this property, which consists of 1,300 acres
underlaid by seven coal seams, five of which will be mined ultimately, three in the
beginning. I was able to examine three seams which will be mined at first,
and give the following details.
Top Seam, No. 4, descending:
Roof, rich Bituminous Black Slate,
containing streaks of––
FT.INS.
Coal 2 3
Bone 01½
Coal 0 7
Slate, variable 00½
Coal 0 11
Clay 00½
Coal 2 0
Clay, variable 01¾
Coal 1 1
Clay, mining 0
Coal 1 1
Total, good6 ft. 3¼ ins.
This is a good seam of coal, five feet six inches of which can be depended on for shipping.
The coal is dull-black in color, and easily mined. The bottom is soft sandstone. Overlying the roof-slate,
is sandstone. The seam here is said to be one foot thicker than it is at Newcastle.
COAL-BUNKERS OF THE SEATTLE, LAKE SHORE AND EASTERN
RAILWAY, ON SEATTLE HARBOR.
Seam No. 2 has been uncovered by the diggings on the railroad, and happens to be at an
unfortunate place for showing the coal. A stump, partly silicified, with part of its bark

54. And another.
lignified, had been taken out of the coal bed, and on each side of it was a tapering band of "Nigger-
head," tapering from eight inches at the stump to nothing at the distance of five feet six inches from
the stump. Selecting an average place, I got the following section, descending:
Good roof of Argilaceous Sandstone.FT.INS.
Bone 0 1
Coal 0 6
Nigger-head, local 0 5
Coal 1 10
Coal, sulphurous 0 3
Coal 1 3
Bone 00½
Coal 2 0
Black slate floor. —————
Total 6 ft. 4½ ins.
Judging from this outcrop, which I suspect does not do full justice to the bed, at least six feet of
merchantable lignitic coal may be depended on from this seam.
Andrew's bed could only be seen at a point 200 feet above the railroad. It is nearest to the
metamorphic axis of the mountain, and hence is the bottom seam in the group. It is said to be wanting
at Newcastle. The coal is in two benches, descending:
UPPER BENCH.
Slate roof: FT. INS.
Coal 0 5
Bone 0 0 
1/16
Coal 0 4
Bone 0 3
Coal 1 8
Pyrite 0 1½
Coal 1 2
Slate 0 5
Coal 4 4
Total 8 ft. 8 
9/16 ins.
LOWER BENCH.
FT.  INS.
Fire-clay 0    6
Coal 1    4
Clay 0    1
Coal 0    4
Clay 0    0½
Coal 1    1
Bone 0    1
Coal 1    9
Total 4 ft. 8½ ins.

55. Large body of
valuable coal.
Washington
Mines.
Raging River
coals.
Details.
The lower bench would probably be neglected for the present, but the upper bench is worthy of
immediate development. The coal is of good quality. Perhaps on analysis it would be classed with
bituminous coals, although the woody structure is discernible in places. It burns freely. The outcrop of
this bed is visible lower down the creek in a crushed condition.
My visit was rather premature for a proper study of the group; but there can be no doubt
that there is here a large body of valuable coal. The quantity is estimated by the mining
engineer, Mr. Whitworth, at 10,500,000 tons. I saw no other coal beds in the territory so favorably
situated for mining and loading. Of course, coal standing at an angle of forty degrees cannot be mined
so cheaply as if it were horizontal; but all the mines in Washington Territory must contend with this
disadvantage, and in all cases coming under my observation, except this one, the mining had to be
done on the down grade, which involved much hoisting, pumping, bad air, etc., which can be avoided at
the Gilman Mines.
An incidental advantage, also, is that the Squak Valley furnishes any amount of timber for building,
propping, railroad ties, etc., and when more generally cultivated, a superabundance of agricultural
products. The experience of Newcastle, and the rapid growth of the market, indicate that these mines
may be enlarged in their operations, almost without limit.
Washington Mines, on one of the upper branches of Squak Creek, show the outcroppings
of three seams of lignite coal, dipping S. of W. I did not visit this place, but was informed
that a company, known as the Washington Coal Company, was engaged in cutting these seams; but I
am not informed as to what are their prospects.
The Raging River Coals. Six miles east of Gilman Mines, where the railroad enters the
Raging River Valley, is found another group of coal seams, older than the Squak coals, and
perhaps corresponding in age with the Franklin and Black Diamond coals, though apparently more
bituminous than they. Raging River is about twelve miles long, and the railroad first approaches it about
midway its length. There are indications of local metamorphism, if not intrusion, visible in the rocks
between Squak Creek and Raging River, and this is further indicated by an outcrop of anthracite at the
north end of the coal seams, within a mile of the road. Mr. Whitworth represents this anthracite seam as
five feet thick, but crushed and fragile. Its structure is laminated, and it breaks into small cubes. He
spoke, also, of another seam of anthracite high up on Raging River, three feet thick, with three inches
slate six inches from the top. He mined in on this for thirty feet without observing any change. The
outcrop of this group of coal seams extends from near the line of the railroad, up the west side of the
valley, parallel with the river, and about a mile from it, and lying in high hills. This coal property is also
owned by the Seattle Coal and Iron Company. The principal mining camp is near the head of the valley,
ten miles above Falls City, six miles above the line of railway. Here I saw the coal seams, which had
been uncovered without having been cut into sufficiently to determine fully their character. One seam is
open in a ravine, half way up the mountain, but most of them near the top, at an elevation of about 800
feet above the river. There are at least six seams, and if the one on the mountain side be a different
seam, there are seven. The coal generally is of good quality: bituminous, with cubical fracture; but its
value is greatly diminished by numerous slate partings, and some of the seams are too thin for
profitable mining. The dip is to the southwest at high angles: about eighty degrees on the mountain
side—less in the top seams.
The seam on the mountain side showed a total thickness of seven feet with sandstone
over and under; but of this there was only about 2 feet 8 inches of good coal in a body, and the rest
coal and slate interleaved. Near the top of the mountain there are six seams open near a rivulet, and
quite near together. Reaching the top of the mountain, I found the upper opening (geologically the
under opening), No. 1, to contain about two feet of good black coal, with one slate parting of an inch
thick.
No. 2. This seam shows a total thickness of eight feet, but it contains so many slate partings that I
could not estimate the bed highly.
No. 3. Here I saw fifteen inches of coal, with slate partings.

56. Snoqualmie
Mountain Coal
Group.
Details.
Good coking
coal.
No. 4. An irregular bed, four to seven feet in thickness, crushed, and probably dislocated, and so slaty
as to be of doubtful value.
No. 5. Another crushed and irregular exposure, four to six feet thick. The coal looks better, and
promises to be a good seam when found in its natural state.
No. 6. A two-foot seam resembling No. 1.
Mr. Whitworth furnished me the following details of an opening near the camp on Raging River, which
was not in a condition to be seen during my visit, but which has since been gone in upon for about
fifteen feet. From bed-rock, ascending:
FT.INS.
Clay 02
Coal, crushed 05
Black bone 01
Coal, crushed 011
Black bone 01
Coal, hard 06
Sand rock 03
Coal, good 010
Bone 02
Coal, good 06
Bone 01½
Coal, good 06
Bone 01
Coal, crushed 036
Clay and rock (diminishing)    46
Coal, crushed 30
Strike, north, 76½° east.
Dip 22° to south.
Mr. Whitworth says that the coal improved as he went in, and he is quite hopeful about this seam. But
his record reads to me like the description of a slide; still it may not be so.
The show upon the whole, as seen by me, was not satisfactory—and yet the beds might possibly
improve inward; and if the coal should coke well, it might pay to wash it; as could easily be done at
Raging River.
The Snoqualmie Coal Group outcrops some hundreds of feet up the west side of
Snoqualmie Mountain, and about three miles southwest of Hop Ranch. The outcrop has
been traced perhaps one mile. There are five seams here running north and south with the
strike of the mountain rocks. The seams dip west at an angle of 45°, i.e., away from the axis of the
mountain.
Seam No. 3 is the third seam from the bottom. A side entry had been driven in on the coal
for 60 feet, but water now barred the entrance and prevented a thorough scrutiny of the seam. Its
thickness was about 3 feet 6 inches, of which there was a band of lignitic coal of three-quarters of an
inch near the top, and five inches of the same near the bottom. The weathered outcrop of this, as of
the coal-beds of Washington Territory generally, had a brownish hue, but the fresh surfaces showed a
good black bituminous coal. It lies firm and regular in its bed. When dug and handled, it goes to small
pieces, and may generally be crushed to powder in the hand; which, of itself, is no bad sign of a good
coking coal.
Seam No. 4, the second seam from the bottom, descending:

57. Also good
coking coal.
Large and
valuable bed.
FT.INS.
Roof, Slate 20
Bone 20
Coal 06
Fine-grained Sandstone, average22
Natural Coke 06
Bituminous Shale 06
Coal 42
Bottom, Sandstone.
The coal of this seam is soft, black and lustrous. An entry was driven in 50 feet, which required much
propping, the roof being bad. At the end of this distance we came squarely against a wall of sandstone,
showing a fault. At this point six inches of the top coal is thrown up vertically, which showed that the
seam thus far had dropped, and that the continuation was to be looked for at a higher level. Mining
upward through the soft material, the coal had been again struck at an elevation of 16 feet, but not the
full thickness of the seam, and not in its true position; but after following it upward 4 feet more the
seam was found in its natural state.
There seems to be no slate in this seam, but occasionally there is found in it a ball of "nigger-head," or
hard sulphurous matter, from the size of a man's head down.
An experiment of coking this coal in a small pit at the mouth of this bank was made by Mr. Kirke and his
coal-bank manager, with as satisfactory results as could be expected from so imperfect a trial. I found
pieces of the coke lying near, and saw better samples which have been brought from here.
While, of course, the coke thus made is not the best quality, it certainly promises well.
Seam No. 2, descending:
Roof, fine-grained Sandstone, under
which is seven inches Black Slate.FT. INS.
Coal 0 6
Slate 2 0
Coal 0 7
Slate 0 4
Coal 0 5
Slate 0 5
Argillaceous and Ferruginous Rock 1 7
Coal 01½
Bone 0 5
Coal (main bench) of good quality 7 0
Nigger-head 0 2
Coal 1 0
Slate 01½
Coal, good 0 6
Slate and Clay 0 7
Lignite (brown coal) 2 1
Bituminous Slate 1 8
Coal 0 ½
Nigger-head 04½
Clay and Bony Slate 0 7
Coal 0 1

58. Another good
bed.
Geological
relations.
This the bottom
group.
Yakima or
Roslyn coal
field.
Coal on the
Wenatchie.
Nigger-head 01½
Coal 0
1/16
Bituminous Slate 1 2
Coal 0 1
Slate 0 7
Coal 0 7
Slate and Sandstone bottom. —————
Total 23 ft. 1
9/16 in.
Seam No. 1 is only partially exposed, the workings having caved in; but enough of the
seam was visible to show that it was a bright, soft, friable, bituminous coal, of good
quality, containing some slate and nigger-head. Its fracture would be called dicey by some geologists,
because it breaks readily into small cubes, even smaller than dice. The seam is probably about five feet
in thickness.
This group probably corresponds geologically with the Kirke Mines, on Green River; but,
judging by the eye, it is a more bituminous coal and better suited to coking. The large bed
here may correspond with one of the large beds at the Kirke Mines.
I fear that faults are numerous in the coal rocks of this group, which, of course, would add to the
expense of mining. But if, as expected, it furnishes a good smelting coke, the field will be extremely
valuable from its contiguity to the magnetic ores of the Cascade Mountains and the scarcity of coking
coals.
This property was for sale when I visited it, and would have been sold but for a claim of ownership set
up by the Northern Pacific Railroad, which, however, in the opinion of good lawyers, had no foundation.
This is the bottom group of the Washington Territory coal field. It will be seen that, taking
the Gilman group, the Raging River group, and the Snoqualmie group on one line, and the
Cedar River, Carbon River, and Green River group on another line, it may be fairly claimed that there are
at least fifteen working seams of three feet and upward in the Washington Territory coal field.
e. The Yakima and Wenatchie Group. This field lies on the east flank of the Cascade Mountains, on the
waters of the Yakima and its tributaries, Cle-ellum and Teanaway. It is believed to extend also into the
Wenatchie Valley, although the area here is probably disconnected from the Yakima area. I purposely
refrained from visiting this region, and for my statements I am indebted chiefly to Bailey Willis, F. H.
Whitworth, Charles Burch, and Mr. Jamieson of the Kirke Mines.
The Yakima area lies north of the Yakima River, near to the Northern Pacific Railroad, and
to the projected line of the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway, and extends about
sixty miles east and west, and six miles north and south. Its dip is gentle, say twelve to
twenty degrees. It holds three coal seams of 2 feet 6 inches, and 5 feet and 5 feet respectively. There is
not much evidence of fracture in any part of the field. The total thickness of the coal-bearing rocks is
estimated by Bailey Willis to be 1,000 feet. This is evidently the lower part of the coal series, the upper
part having been carried away. The best seam is mined at Roslyn, four miles north of the Northern
Pacific Railroad, in the interest of that railroad.
The seam here furnishes upward of four feet of good coal. The coal is bituminous, dull black, firm, and
free burning. Mr. Jamieson thinks it will not make good coke. Others, however, think that it will, and
these are supported partially by the laboratory test in Washington City, D. C. (See Table of Coal
Analyses, page 107.) It is called in the table Roslyn coal.
This coal is used chiefly in the locomotives; but the popular demand for it is very great in the plateau
country of East Washington.
I have no knowledge of the coal on Wenatchie River except what I obtained from Mr.
Burch, who says that there are two seams of coal exposed in that valley, one of eight feet

59. Coal under the
Great Bend
country.
The first mining
on Bellingham
Bay.
Coal on Skagit
River.
Coal south of
Puget Sound.
Total shipments
of coal from
Washington
Territory.
and one of three feet. The coal-bearing rocks extend for thirty-five miles up the river, and have a width
of ten miles.
The coal is reported by Mr. Burch to appear east of the Columbia River, opposite to the
fields just described, and to disappear under the basalt. If so, here is a resource for the
future. Concerning the importance of this coal field to the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern
Railway, I will speak in another connection.
f. Bellingham Bay, Skagit River, and other Coal Fields. The first shipping of coal from
Washington Territory was done from the Seahome Mines, on Bellingham Bay, Puget Sound,
about twenty-five miles south of the Canada line. The mines were very badly managed;
they took fire on several occasions. The coal was of the lignitic grade, but not of the best quality, and
when other mines of better coal were opened the Bellingham Bay mines were closed. It is reported that
coking coal has been found some distance back from the bay.
Coal has also been found on Skagit River, which, I suspect, from a sample which I saw and
from what I heard (some of it), is good, and possibly might coke well. One of the coal
properties is held by A. Ford and others. The following description is furnished by Mr. Norman B. Kelly.
It is found about three miles north of the Skagit River, and about five miles from Sedro. The country is
hilly. There are at least six or eight coal seams, perhaps more. Those examined run from eighteen
inches to thirty inches, and are thought to be clean coal. The seams lie between sandrocks. The
outcrops begin near the level of the valley, and continue in a series to an altitude of 550 feet above the
valley. The highest outcrops are those of the lowest seams geologically. The strike is north sixty degrees
west. At the foot of the hill, the seams dip forty-five degrees to the southwest, but the angle becomes
steeper on the mountain side, until finally they are vertical. All the outcrops are within 1,500 feet
horizontal distance. Blacksmiths use the coal and pronounce it equal to Cumberland. It cokes readily in
the open fire; burns with a bright, hot, but small flame, and seems to leave but little ash.
Of course, the thinness of these seams is an objection. There is coal, also, upon the south side of the
river; but there has been but little development in this field. An analysis of this coal is given in the table
preceding, but I cannot say from what seam the sample was derived.
The following analysis of coal of the Crystal Mine, near Sterling, is said to have been made by Mr. Wm.
G. Tenne, assayer, of Portland, Oregon:
Coke 71.31
Combustible gases 23.17
Ash 5.31
Moisture .21
A very fine showing.
It has long been known that there are considerable areas of coal south and southwest of
Puget Sound. But they have not been very highly esteemed, the coals being lignite of not
the best quality. There are at least two seams of seven to twelve feet thickness, and they lie at an angle
of five degrees, with good roof and floor. Some effort is now making on Skookumchuck and Chehalis
rivers to develop these seams.
Governor Semple, in his report for 1887,gives as the total shipment for the year ending
June 30, 1887, the amount 525,705 tons. And he gives as the total output of coal from all
the Washington Territory mines from the beginning of shipments to June 30, 1887:
MINES. TONS.
Newcastle 1,308,178
Franklin 46,272
Black Diamond 148,418

60. Coal on
Vancouver's
Island.
The Iron Ores.
The great
magnetic ore
beds of
Cascade
Mountains.
Resembles the
Cranberry ore
deposits.
Renton 35,015
Talbot 10,000
Cedar River 64,816
Carbonado 402,207
South Prairie 139,792
Wilkeson 10,372
Bucoda 4,550
Roslyn 40,987
Bellingham Bay (estimated)250,000
Clallam Bay 500
Total 2,461,108
I have now given a sketch of all the coal mines and coal areas of Washington Territory, and will
conclude with a few words on the coal of Vancouver's Island.
g. Coal Seams in British Columbia. The productive coal field is on Vancouver's Island, on
the east side of the Gulf of Georgia. There are three mines in operation as given below:
ANNUAL OUTPUT.
SHORT
TONS.
Nanaimo Colliery 112,761
Wellington Colliery 185,846
East Wellington
Colliery
28,029
This coal is marketed chiefly in California. The coal is lignitic; and yet it is said to coke well. It is also
good stocking coal. The beds dip from 5° to 30° southward. The cost of transportation to San Francisco
is about the same as from Seattle, and the cost of delivering on board ship about the same as from the
Newcastle mines. The tariff of 75 cents per ton on foreign coal is regarded with satisfaction by the coal
men of Washington Territory. The repeal of this tariff would inflict a heavy blow upon the mining
industry of the Territory.
II. Iron Ore.—The iron ores of Washington Territory consist of Bog ore, Brown ore
(Limonite), some Red, or Specular ore (Hematite), and Magnetic ore (Magnetite). The bog ore has been
found in considerable quantities underlying the flats bordering Puget Sound, and has been worked in a
furnace on Bellingham Bay. These ores, no doubt, come from the decomposition of the limonites, the
magnetites and the basaltic rocks of the high lands, especially on the Cascade Mountains. These
Bellingham Bay ores generally have an excess of phosphorus, and yield about 42 per cent. of metallic
iron. Brown ore is reported on the Skagit River, sufficiently abundant, perhaps, but not containing more
than 40 per cent. metallic iron. I saw a remarkable deposit of brown ore on the Willamette, near
Portland, Oregon. It is a horizontal stratum varying from 4 to 20 feet in thickness, lying between masses
of basalt. It has been worked in the Oswego furnace, but yielded only about 40 per cent. metallic iron. I
did not see any specular ore in place in Washington Territory, but saw samples, said to have been
brought from near the Middle Fork of Snoqualmie River.
But unquestionably the most important, as well as the largest, are the magnetic ore beds
on the Cascade Mountains. These ores are found 1,000 to 1,500 feet above the chief
water-courses on those high ridges and peaks which make up the Cascade Range along
the headwaters of the Snoqualmie, on the west side of the mountain, and of the Yakima on the east
flank of the mountain. These ores are underlaid by syenite and quartzite, and overlaid by
limestone. The ore itself is found in conditions similar to that of the Cranberry ore in the

61. Guye Mine on
Mount Logan.
Denny Mine.
Chair Peak, or
Kelly Mine.
Middle Fork
Mines.
All easily
reached from
Seattle, Lake
Shore and
Eastern
Railway.
Cle-ellum ore
beds.
Unaka Mountains of North Carolina; that is, it lies in pockets of various sizes in hornblendic, porphyritic
and epidotic rocks.
I visited two exposures of this ore, one on Mount Logan and the other on Mount Denny. These are only
a mile or two from the line of the railroad. On Mount Logan there was only one large outcrop of iron-
bearing rocks, but float was seen at numerous points on the mountain. The main exposure
showed an ore-bearing rock, presenting a horizontal front some sixty feet in length, and
forty to fifty feet in height or thickness. At one place a considerable area in this space seemed to be
pure ore. For the rest, the pockets were smaller, and, of course, the amount of rock proportionally
larger. What is to be found on going in from the surface can never be told in advance in ore beds of this
sort. In working the great mine of Cranberry, North Carolina, the largest body of ore was reached 100
to 200 feet from the surface.
This bed of ore is known as The Summit, or Guye Mine. Its elevation is 1,250 feet above the grade of
the Lake Shore Railroad, and about 1,000 feet above the small stream at the foot of the mountain.
There would be no difficulty in building an inclined plane from the ore bank to the small valley below.
The snow in winter might interfere with mining.
Ascending the mountain above the main exposure, I found what seemed to be another level of iron ore
100 feet higher; but possibly it may be the same bed displaced. Still higher appeared to be a third level
of ore, and higher still, I observed a little float ore at a point nearly 2,000 feet above the grade of the
railroad, on what may be called the summit of Mount Logan, at a point which my barometer made
4,700 feet above Puget Sound.
The Denny Mine is on a different mountain, somewhat farther to the west, but about the
same distance from the railroad. It is reached also by a narrow valley from which a steep ascent of
nearly 1,100 feet is made to the main exposure, which shows an edge of pure fine-grained magnetite,
about twenty feet thick, with limestone above, and also beneath, apparently. Fragments of epidote,
porphyry and flinty quartzite lay around. The limestone did not show so large here as on Mount Logan.
The ore dips steeply toward the south, and seemed to encrust the mountain for a distance of, perhaps,
225 feet, but with a somewhat broken surface. It then passed with its limestone under quartzite cliffs
which crest the mountain. The bed might have been followed around the mountain, where it is said to
show at a number of places. It seemed to pass into a matrix of chert.
I did not visit the Chair Peak, or Kelly Mine, which is some miles distant; but I conversed
with probably every man who ever saw it, some half a dozen, including Mr. Whitworth,
who made a survey of the property. It is reported as probably the largest and purest of all the deposits
of magnetic ore, and lies at about the same height on the mountains. This ore would come out by way
of the Middle Fork of Snoqualmie.
I did not visit Guye's other mine, which lies high, perhaps 3,000 feet above Middle Fork.
Mr. Guye represents it as similar in character to the bed elsewhere, with the addition of
some brown and red ore. The other deposits mentioned I received no description of.
None of these mines have been developed beyond the uncovering of a face. As yet there is
no furnace for smelting them, and no means provided for bringing them off the mountains.
There is no difficulty about reaching them with spur railroads and inclined planes. It has
occurred to me as possible that a narrow gauge railroad might reach all of these mines,
without heavy grades, by starting at the highest point of the Lake Shore road and
following the divides from mountain to mountain. This, however, can only be determined by a special
reconnaissance.
There are large deposits of iron ore also on the east side of the Cascade Mountains, not far
from the crest line, on the waters of the Cle-ellum River. Three distinct beds are reported.
They are all in the valley of the Cle-ellum River. The upper bed is situated about eight miles above Cle-
ellum Lake, on the main and east fork of the Cle-ellum River. This bed has been described to me by Mr.
Whitworth and Mr. Burch. The distance from the Northern Pacific Railroad is twenty-five miles, following
the Cle-ellum valley. It is within sixteen miles of the most distant location made of the Seattle, Lake

62. Burch's ore
bed.
Dudley ore
bed.
Undoubtedly
large beds of
steel ores.
Of superior
quality.
Shore and Eastern Railway; and by another route which has been spoken of, this railroad would pass
close to the ore bed. Mr. Whitworth says concerning it: "The ledge is well defined, and is traced and
located about two miles, its course being nearly north and south. It is apparently from forty to sixty feet
in width, and pitches at about an angle of 20° to the west. The casing rock is porphyry. The deposit is
evidently extensive. The ore appears rich, is magnetic, and is reported to assay from 56½ to 66 per
cent. I obtained samples of the rock, from which satisfactory tests can be, no doubt, obtained."
The elevation of the iron ore outcrop is estimated at 3,000 feet, which would place it nearly on a level
with the summit of Snoqualmie Pass; but it is only about 200 feet above the local water-level.
Mr. Burch says concerning this ore bed, which has now been bought by Mr. Kirke for the Moss Bay
Company, that the strike of the bed is northeast, whilst the outcrop runs northwest. The ore is in five or
more separate beds, each bed being on an average forty to fifty feet thick, and the beds separated by
rock. The ore can be followed but a short distance along the strike.
Burch's iron ore bed approaches the Cle-ellum River about four miles below the Kirke bed,
and extends in a northeast direction to the headwaters of Boulder Creek, a distance of five
miles. The outcrop crosses three high ridges. The dip is south, at an angle of 45°. The width is at least
twenty feet. A ferruginous limestone lies against the ore on the south side. The limestone is 300 or 400
feet thick. It seems to overlie the iron bed. Its outside or top layers are pure blue limestone.
A gray sandstone, rather soft, overlies the limestone, and over this comes a coal-bearing rock in which
are dykes of gray iron ore, some of them standing out of the ground 80 or 100 feet. The magnetic iron
ore is associated with hornblende and quartzite. All rocks dip south. Mr. Burch says that this ore
resembles the Kirke ore, but has some of the characteristics of hematite. Mr. Guye talks in the same
way about his iron ore on Middle Fork.
At one point, not far from Cle-ellum River, a bed of gray iron ore crosses the magnetic ore at right
angles. This gray ore is not well understood. It may be an altered copper lode. The main ore bed is
more strongly magnetic near the intersection than it is elsewhere.
I may here remark that Mr. Burch reports considerable float of rich magnetite on the shores of Lake
Chelan.
I have no description of the Dudley iron ore bed, but it is said to be large, and of the best
quality. Its location is also in the Cle-ellum valley, between Burch's bed and the lake, and
within four or five miles of the lake. This information I get through a letter written from Cle-ellum to Mr.
Whitworth. I have no personal knowledge of these Cle-ellum beds.
There can be no doubt as to the existence in the Cascade Mountains along this line of
superior iron ore in large quantities, the most of which is suited to the manufacture of
steel.
There can be no doubt as to the superior quality of the Snoqualmie iron ores. Analysis
shows that they rank with the best steel ores in their large percentage of metallic iron and
small admixture of deleterious impurities. Of the following tables, the first gives all the reliable analyses
I could obtain of the ores of the Snoqualmie region of the Cascade Mountains. Those reported from Mr.
Kirke and Mr. Dewey are of high authority. Those from Mr. Jenner are given in Governor Squire's report
for 1885, and are probably equally reliable.
ANALYSES OF SNOQUALMIE IRON ORES.

63. {
Dewey
(chemist).
}
Reported
by Kirke.
}
{
Reported
by Kirke.
}
{
Proved by
analysis to be
unsurpassed, if
equaled.
Kind. Locality. Silica.
Metallic
Iron.
Sulphur.Phosphorus.Authority.
Magnetite.
Mt.
Logan
Summit.
"
"
"
"
1.30
2.73
2.23
1.87
1.67
71.17
68.56
69.40
70.18
67.00
   .00½
.02
   .00¾
.04
   .03½
   .03½
.03
0.02 
 
Average1.96   69.26
1/5   .01
9/16   .03
1/5
Bog
Ironstone.
Micaceous.
Hematite.
Middle
Fork
(Guye).
9.37
6.03
22.32  
3.33
11.77  
45.50
64.50
59.50
67.80
60.90
Traces
0.05  
0.05  
0.03  
0.02  
0.08  
——
Trace
Trace
Trace
Magnetite.
Denny
Mt.
No. 1
No. 2
No. 3
No. 4
No. 5
No. 6
2.72
1.30
2.73
4.02
2.23
1.87
69.39
71.17
68.56
67.17
69.40
70.18
0.042
0.005
0.019
0.041
0.008
0.013
0.035
0.039
0.035
0.031
0.035
0.031
Reported
by Chas. K.
Jenner,
from a
Philadelphia
chemist.
Average  2.47⅚  69.31⅙  0.021⅓  0.034⅓
By way of comparison, I next introduce a table of analyses, which begins with
what Mr. Phineas Barnes, in his report on the steel industry of the United States
(1885), gives as a typical steel ore from the best American mines.
The second analysis gives the average of fourteen analyses of the
best Lake Superior steel ores. The third is a typical steel ore from the
Iron Mountain of Missouri. The fourth is the average of all the
analyses of the magnetic ores of the Snoqualmie Valley, which name I give to them
to distinguish them from similar ores on the east side of the Cascade Mountains, of
which I have no analyses:
COMPARATIVE ANALYSES OF STEEL ORES.

64. Improved
processes.
Metallic Iron.Sulphur.  Phosphorus.Silica.
Typical Steel Ore9.24⅔ .20⅔ .03⅔ 6.17⅔
Lake Superior68.48 —— .053 2.07
Iron Mountain65.500 .016 .040 5.750
Snoqualmie 68.80
8/13 .023
4/13.028⅔ 2.61
10/13
This showing places the Snoqualmie ores in the front rank of American steel ores;
indeed, it shows a little higher in metallic iron, and a little lower in phosphorus,
than any of the others. These analyses are, of course, made from the ore proper;
i.e., without any addition of the matrix, or gangue-rock, in which the ores are
imbedded. With all magnetites of this type it is only in exceptional spots that much
of the ore can be gotten, free from the enclosing rock. Under ordinary
circumstances something like 20 per cent. of the ore sent to the furnace will be
gangue-rock. There is reason to hope, however, that ere long there will be a
practical method for separating the rock from the ore, and at the same time
getting rid of most of the sulphur. At Cranberry, N. C., the ore is now roasted and
stamped into small bits, and an experiment has been made of passing the ore
through a jigger, whereby the hornblendic and other enclosing rocks were
separated by the pulsations of the water, as in coal washing.
The Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company, Pennsylvania, has been
separating the ore from the rock with good results. The same has
been done at Crown Point, N. Y., Lion Mountain, near Plattsburg, N. Y., Negaunee,
Mich., and Beach Glen, N. J.
The process is really one of concentration, in some respects similar to that pursued
with the refractory ores of the precious and base metals. The ore is first calcined
sufficiently to make it friable. It is then crushed, by a Blake or other rock-breaker,
and is finally sluiced, or jigged, or both. The aim is to produce a Bessemer
concentrate which would yield 60 per cent. or more metallic iron, and at the same
time get rid of whatever phosphorus might be in the gangue-rock. In the best
experiments the object was more than accomplished. The concentrate contained
63 per cent. of metallic iron, the middlings 55 per cent., and the tailings 16 per
cent. This experiment was made with a refractory Adirondack magnetite, which
was so intermixed with hornblende, quartz, mica, etc., that the ore might be
described as a hornblendic gneiss, carrying a large proportion of magnetite. No
doubt experience will teach some way of saving the ore that is now wasted in the
tailings.
Thus we may hope to see removed in a short time the only practical difficulty in
working the crystalline magnetites, such as those of Snoqualmie, and many others.

65. Granite.
Marble and
limestone.
Precious metals
on Cascade
Mountains.
III. Granite , Limestone and Marble.—What is here called granite is really
syenite. It is found high on the mountains, associated, as already intimated, with
the magnetic iron ore, and with hard quartzite, porphyry, epidote, hornblende, and
limestone largely marbleized. This group of rocks forms the core of the Cascade
Mountains, and hence underlies all the coal-bearing rocks to the westward. The
group has been assigned by some geologists to the Archæan age; but it is possible
that they are metamorphosed strata of the Silurian, or some subsequent period.
Some of this syenite has a large proportion of quartz, which gives it a light
appearance; but in other places the hornblende crystals are of good size and in full
proportion, and the feldspar is of the orthoclase variety, which gives a mixture of
three colors, and makes fully as handsome a stone as the Quincy granite.
Limestone is reported as existing in some of the islands in Puget Sound, where it is
burnt into lime; but I have met with no particular account of it.
The limestone and marble associated with the iron ore on the
Cascade Mountains has already been alluded to. It is of fine quality,
very abundant, and easily quarried. It will have great value for flux and commercial
lime. It is also beautiful in color, varying from the purest white to blue, and
mixtures of the two colors. In texture it is sometimes exceedingly fine grained, and
in others crystallized into a true and beautiful marble, which, so far as can be
judged by eye, would be well adapted to both inside and outside finishing and
statuary. On Mount Logan the limestone deposit almost covers the mountain above
the lower line of the iron ore, and is so exposed as to be quarried with the greatest
ease.
The same association of limestone in heavy beds with iron ore seems to exist also
on the Cle-ellum, as mentioned by Mr. Burch. This gentleman spoke to me, also, of
a very beautiful and easily burned limestone in the Wenatchie Valley. Large beds of
limestone also exist in connection with the precious and base metals, which are
next to be described. In the Colville country limestone seems to abound.
IV. The Precious and Base Metals.—In the Cascade Mountains, and in
the mountains north of the plateau country of East Washington, and
in the Cœur d'Alene Mountains, within the border of Idaho, occur
numerous veins bearing gold, silver, copper, lead, sulphur and iron. Discoveries on
Cascade Mountain proper have been made on both sides, chiefly in the region of
the iron ore. Those at the Denny and Chair Peak mines have been most spoken of.
Professor Mason, of the "Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute," Troy, New York, gives
the following assay of two samples sent from the Chair Peak claim of Kelly, Wilson
& Co.:
1st.Silver13.9 oz. per ton.
2d.Silver12.4

66. On Cle-ellum
River.
Large copper
vein in Stevens
County.
Precious metals
on Methow
River.
The rich mines
of Okinagane.
Both14% copper.
Professor Price, of San Francisco, also assayed a sample from the same vein.
Silver$3.63 per ton.
12% copper.
Metallic veins are found also in connection with iron ore on Cle-ellum
River. Mr. Burch reports a copper and silver lode, and also two lodes
of gold and silver, in this neighborhood. He reports the ores as high grade, of
good, workable thickness, and outcropping for several thousand feet. There is a
gray ore in the same region, the character of which has not yet been determined.
This has already been mentioned as lying close to the iron ore, and may possibly
be metamorphosed chalcopyrite. Mr. Burch thinks that the silver ores will run from
forty to eighty ounces, while in some spots the richness is very extraordinary. The
lead ore in association ranges from fifteen to forty per cent.
The same gentleman, who is a resident of the Okinagane region,
reports a remarkable lode of copper ore running due south across
Stevens County, from the Canada line to the Columbia River. It shows
a plain outcrop for about forty miles. The vein carries both native and gray copper
and a small percentage of silver.
Reports, apparently authentic, are made of numerous other veins of
metal in the same region, particularly in the valley of the Methow
River and the valley of the Okinagane River. The Colville region,
beginning fifty miles north of Spokane Falls, is well known as a rich mining centre.
What I know of these regions I learned from the oral or written testimony of men
who had seen what they described, and some of them residents of the localities.
The basin of the Methow River has been but little prospected, and although I
gathered many favorable items concerning the mineral deposits there, I met but
one man who had personally examined the country, and he confirmed the
favorable reports. He said the ores were similar to those on the Okinagane, but
were more abundant.
The Okinagane country is well known, hundreds of men having been
at work there last summer, and some of its mines, particularly the
Ruby and Arlington, having become notable for their richness. Among my
informants are Mr. Burch and Mr. Thomas Lothian, who both reside on the
Okinagane River; and also Mr. J. E. Clayton, mining engineer, who made a
professional report on the country, which was printed in the Spokane Falls Review.

67. The mines in
the Colville
region.
The mining district is on Conconnully Creek (misnamed Salmon River), which
enters Okinagane River from the northwest, about twenty miles from its mouth.
There are two wagon roads to the Conconnully, one from Spokane Falls, with a
branch from Sprague, distance 150 miles, on which stages ran last summer.
Another road starts from Ellensburg on the Yakima, and is 195 miles long. With an
expenditure of a few thousand dollars on the channel of the Okinagane, the mouth
of the Conconnully could be reached from the Columbia by light-draught steamers,
from which a railway fifteen miles long would reach the mines. Mr. Burch says that
he and his father sounded the river, and also the Columbia, and that steamers can
start at Rock Island Rapids and go to the mouth of the Conconnully, and, in flush
water, can ascend the creek. Mr. Clayton makes the same statement as to the river.
The country rocks in the mining districts are of the same character as those
associated with the iron ore on Mount Logan and the Denny Mountain—hard
metamorphic and plutonic rocks.
The principal mineral lode is described by Mr. Clayton as "composed of true quartz
gangue carrying the silver ore in disseminated grains of black sulphurets of silver,
with some copper-silver glance, and a brittle sulphuret, resembling tennantite,
giving a dark, red, powdery streak, approaching the characteristics of dark
antimonial ruby silver. In addition to this is found galena and zinc-blende."
Assays made by Mr. Wm. H. Fuller, of Spokane Falls, gave for first-class ore from
this lode: Silver, $186.45, and gold, $4.50 = $190.95 value per ton. Second-class
ore assayed $34.16 silver and 45 cents gold. Mr. Slater thinks that one-third of the
vein will yield first-class ore. It is a rich vein, averaging eight feet so far as opened.
There are two or three lodes in the district. Years will be required to ascertain their
limits. But all the indications point to large mining operations in the Okinagane
country as soon as the transportation can be supplied.
My chief authority for the following statements concerning the Colville region is Mr.
Kearney, one of the firm of Kearney Brothers, owners of the two largest mines of
that country, namely, the Old Dominion and the Daisy. I incorporate some
statements also from two articles published in the Spokane Falls Review, one by W.
E. Sullivan, and the other by J. B. Slater.
The Colville region is the east end of Stevens County, the part lying
east of the Columbia River and north of Spokane Falls. Its chief town
(500 inhabitants) is called Colville, from the fort of that name which
was situated there. It is ninety-one miles north of Spokane Falls. Between the two
points there is almost a continuous valley of great productiveness. The mineral
region begins at Chewelah, fifty miles north of Spokane Falls, and continues at
least forty miles north of Colville. Granite, porphyry, and limestone are found here,
as in the other metalliferous regions. In some cases the ores are in slate and
quartz; in others, in granite and porphyry; in still others, limestone. Some of the
ores are iron carbonates, carrying silver, gold, and lead in paying quantities. In

68. The Old
Dominion Mine.
The Daisy
Mine.
Young America
Company.
The Little
Dalles.
Cœur d'Alene
Mines.
other cases, as at the Old Dominion mines, the ore exists in the form of a chloride
and black sulphate in limestone walls.
Rich mines of argentiferous galena were discovered last summer three or four
miles east of Chewelah, and vigorously developed at numerous points. Seven miles
west of Chewelah shafts were sunk on a rich vein, three feet wide, of gray copper
and silver chloride. The Eagle Mine was the first discovery, and is the most noted.
It is black metal, containing galena, silver, and gold. Altogether, there are said to
be two hundred mining claims, more or less developed, in the district around
Chewelah.
The mines in the Colville district are very numerous. The Old
Dominion Mine is six miles east of the town. It is on an 8-foot fissure
vein, which assays 150 ounces silver, 25 per cent. galena, and $7.00 gold to the
ton of ore. There are ten mines in the Old Dominion group; and Mr. Slater states
that the $80,000 worth of silver reported as the product of Washington Territory in
1886, all went from the Old Dominion group.
The Daisy Mine is twenty-four miles southward from Colville. The vein
here is 25 feet wide, with a streak of ore in it 18 inches wide, which
widens to 11 feet 8 inches at the bottom of the shaft. This shaft is 127 feet deep.
Seventy-five feet from the top of the shaft, a tunnel has been run off horizontally
in five feet of ore. The assay reported for the Daisy ore gives silver 50 ounces,
gold $2.00, lead 30 per cent., and iron 25 per cent. It is self-fluxing.
Sixteen miles and a half northward from Colville, near the Columbia
River, a rich discovery of silver-lead ore has been made by the Young
America Consolidated Company. The vein averages five feet, runs northeast and
southwest, and has been shafted through ore to the depth of 180 feet. A test
showed 90 ounces of silver and 40 per cent. of lead. A number of other openings
have been made on the lode.
The Little Dalles, thirty-eight miles north of Colville, is another
neighborhood rich in mineral. The ores are galena and lead
carbonate, with silver. On Bruce Creek, and east of Bruce Creek, twelve miles north
of Colville, are similar veins. A smelter of twenty tons capacity has been erected at
Colville, which affords encouragement to mining; but it is not satisfactory to the
largest owners. Smelting should be done on a large scale, and in a centre of large
business. There can be no doubt that here, also, will be a region of great activity
and large production as soon as it is connected by rail with Spokane Falls.
I have indicated the mining localities on the map accompanying this Report as
nearly as my information would allow, but only an approximation is expected.
The region that just now is attracting most attention is the Cœur
d'Alene country, because the mines are more developed; and they are
more developed because the miners have better transportation than exists in the

69. The large
tonnage from
and to the
mines.
Colville and the other mineral regions. Some thousands of men were at work last
season on the streams entering the lake, particularly on the South Fork of the
Cœur d'Alene River.
At Spokane Falls I was able to get reliable information concerning the region, and
would mention as chief among my authorities Mr. S. S. Glidden, at one time well
known in Alabama as an able iron manufacturer, now proprietor of the Tiger Mine,
on Canyon Creek, which empties into one branch of Cœur d'Alene River. By
reference to the map, the following description may be readily understood:
The Cœur d'Alene Mountains, River and Lake are in Idaho Territory, near the line of
Washington Territory. The drainage is through Spokane River into the Columbia.
The distance from the nearest point on the lake to Spokane Falls is twenty-five
miles. The Cœur d'Alene River has two branches, on both of which mining has
been done, but most largely on the South Fork. Previous to 1886, all the mining on
this fork was done at Eagle, Beaver, Delta, Murray, etc., and was chiefly gold placer
mining, which was not particularly remunerative. Placer mining has also been done
on the South Fork; but the chief ores on this branch are argentiferous galena, with
some gold in quartz. A large number of claims have been worked into since the
beginning in 1885, and the increase of mining population has been going on
rapidly. Mr. Glidden thought that there were ten thousand people last fall in the
Cœur d'Alene mining country. The veins are accessible and very thick, some of
them as much as forty feet. The ores usually carry 40 to 60 per cent. of lead, 5 to
50 ounces of silver, and often about $3.00 in gold to the ton of ore. The veins are
true fissures, and strike across the country rocks, which are principally porphyry
and quartzite. The strike of the main veins runs parallel to the river, and at a
distance of two to six miles from it. There are many cross gulches which cut the
veins at right angles, and thus present vertical faces which offer the best facilities
for prospecting and for mining.
The veins have been opened at so many places as to put beyond doubt their
continuity on long lines, and their great abundance. In fact, the indications point to
a development resembling that made near Leadville.
Some of the ore must be concentrated, and much of it must be
shipped in bulk to the reduction works. Such tonnage is considered
the best possible for a railroad. The ore can be carried in any kind of
car, and is not subject to theft or any sort of damage; and yet its
precious character enables it to bear higher freight rates than pig-iron. There are
no fluxes in the country outside of the ore itself, and it will be more economical to
carry the ore out than to bring in fluxes. The smelting of the ores on the ground
would be further embarrassed by the difficulty in getting fuel. The timber is in
patches, and often inaccessible; hence charcoal would be costly, and there is no
coke to be gotten anywhere near. The smelting of mixed ores of this sort is a very
complicated process, requiring quite a number of different elements, and can be

70. most economically conducted on a large scale, and by the mixture of various
different ores. Hence the advantage of having these works at some great centre
where ores of many kinds may be brought. In the establishment of such a centre,
of course, reference should be had to commercial and trading facilities. A large
mining community in one place and a large commercial and manufacturing
community in another, involves large transportation of crude materials, and of
manufactured products, of food, and of passengers.
As yet, the Cœur d'Alene mining is in its early infancy. Means of transportation are
partially furnished by means of water and short narrow-gauge railroads, but they
are insufficient. Shipments now are small, but they will rapidly increase, and Mr.
Glidden thinks that in three years 2,000 tons of ore will come out daily, and as
many tons of freight go in—certainly a splendid outlook for business.
In concluding, as I have now done, the general statement in regard to the physical
resources of Washington Territory, I would remark, that all the facts stated
heretofore have a close relation to the interests of the Seattle, Lake Shore and
Eastern Railway and its friends, and that the remainder of this report will consist in
practical applications of the facts to the railroad and personal interests involved.

71. CITY OF SEATTLE, WASHINGTON TERRITORY.

72. Commercial
and
manufacturing
advantages.
Good climate.
Good
population.
High
civilization.
SPECIAL REMARKS on the Country and its
Resources along the Line of the Seattle, Lake
Shore and Eastern Railway .
SEATTLE.
Concerning this city of 15,000 to 16,000 inhabitants, I need not
repeat what has been so well said in the reports of Governor Squire,
and of United States officers who have examined and reported to the
Government with regard to this location—notably, Gen. Isaac I.
Stephens, Gen. George B. McClellan, Gen. Nelson A. Miles, and others; also by the
Seattle Chamber of Commerce. Its location, its harbor, its people, its commerce
and manufactures, its solid and rapid growth, and its local relation to all the great
natural resources of the Territory, give to Seattle advantages which cannot be
equaled by any other port on the Sound. Its climate, as to temperature, both in
winter and summer, is remarkable. It is pleasantly cool in summer,
and in winter rarely severe. Its only drawback is an excess of moisture for perhaps
four months of the winter season. But this is preferable to the violent storms and
deep snows and extreme cold to which the Eastern plains and the upper
Mississippi country are subject, and which sometimes attack New York and the
New England States. On Puget Sound there are no blizzards nor cyclones, and
rarely so much as an inch of snow. The medical testimonies give a very favorable
hill of health.
The industries of city and country are prosecuted with less interruption from
weather than in any of the States east of the Rocky Mountains. The annual rainfall
is not greater, not so great, indeed, as in some parts of the Atlantic seaboard. It is
not so well distributed among the months as it is eastward; but outdoor work
rarely stops on Puget Sound.
The population of Seattle struck me as exceedingly good. Her
controlling classes are men of character, intelligence and substance.
The appearance of the stores, the streets, the offices, and factories, would do
credit to an old city. Water, electric lights, street railways, good fire companies, well
organized police, handsome residences, churches, schools—all attest the progress
of her civilization. Her wharves and railroad depots are crowded with
business. The special pride of the city seems to be her schools, public
and private. Her large and handsome school buildings seem purposely to have
been placed in the most prominent positions. Her public school system is well

73. Railroad lines.
The chief ship-
building centre.
Seattle better
located than
San Francisco.
Unrivalled
terminal
property.
organized and supported. The University of the Territory is located here, and in full
operation. These things, considered together, augur most favorably for the future
of this young city.
Her growth will be rapidly accelerated by the extension of her
railroads. Besides her coal roads, she will soon be practically the connecting point
of certainly two, and perhaps three, transcontinental railroad lines. She now has
railroad connection with the Northern Pacific, and will shortly be connected with
the Canadian Pacific by the West Coast road. But the road that will do most for
Seattle, indeed, the road which of itself would make a city at its Sound terminus, is
the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railroad. This will be true if the road never
crosses the limits of Washington Territory; but no doubt it will ultimately cross the
continent, or at least have close transcontinental connections.
When these roads are thus extended, they will bring vast quantities of lumber, and
of mineral and agricultural products, and carry in exchange foreign and domestic
products for the supply of the rural and mining population, to say nothing of the
great Eastern trade. Her coastwise and foreign trade have already been discussed.
Puget Sound must also become the chief ship-building centre of the
continent, and the possession by Seattle of the great fresh-water
lakes so close to the Sound, and the fact that here will be the point where the
Bessemer pig-iron and its products will be manufactured, will give this point
advantage over all others on the Sound. Seattle will build ships for England, New
England, South America, Asia, and the Islands of the Ocean; and just here will first
be seen the dawning of the new day which will come to our American merchant
marine, of late so depressed. And the Government itself must sooner or later
establish on Lake Washington a navy-yard where ships can be built of the best
material at minimum cost; and where her ships out of commission can lie
landlocked, secure from the teredo and the corroding effects of sea-water, and can
at once get rid of their barnacles.
Seattle can have no rival on the Pacific Coast except San Francisco,
which has the only good harbor and entrance outside of Puget Sound, but which
has no coal, nor iron, nor timber, and whose back-country does not equal the
Snoqualmie valley of East Washington for agricultural and mineral capabilities.
THE TERMINAL PROPERTY OF THE SEATTLE, LAKE
SHORE AND EASTERN RAILROAD.
The city and suburban property which the railroad has secured is
singularly valuable, and will afford every facility for city and foreign
business. It is correctly described in the documents of the company.

74. But two
entrances by
land.
Superiority of
the northern
suburbs.
Factories of the
future.
Ship canal.
No future road can acquire such facilities. They approach a monopoly of great
value.
SUBURBAN INTERESTS.
There can be practically but two railroad entrances to Seattle, one
from the south, and the other from the north, owing to the bluff
ground on which the city is built, with Puget Sound in front and Lake
Washington in the rear. The roads from the existing coal mines and from the
Northern Pacific enter from the south; the Lake Shore road enters from the north.
Suburban improvements will no doubt be extended both north and south. But it
seemed to me that for residences and amusements the northern end has the
advantage, as the high lands are more convenient to the railroad, and
command fine views of those beautiful lakes on the east, and of the
Sound on the west. Here will be the pleasant drives, the place for
sailing, rowing and swimming; for open-air games, picnics, etc. On the east side of
Lake Washington will be vegetable and fruit gardens and dairies, whose products
will reach the city by this railroad; to all of which have been added the powerful
influence of the Moss Bay operations.
The logging business begins in sight of the city, and a number of logging camps
were already in operation along the first twenty miles of the railroad. After the
loggers, follow the farmers. Already a surprising number of people have
established homes in this direction.
Near the Sound and a little distance from the city will be great saw-
mills, grain elevators, canneries, and, in time, fish-oil and fertilizer
mills, tanneries, smelting furnaces, sulphuric acid and other chemical works. And
here will be the ship canal connecting the lakes with the Sound, and
the shipyards of the future.

75. Superiority of
the timber on
the Seattle,
Lake Shore and
Eastern
Railway.
A TRAIN-LOAD OF LOGS ON THE SEATTLE, LAKE SHORE AND EASTERN
RAILWAY.
TIMBER.
The great lumber interest will have a larger and richer field on the Seattle, Lake
Shore and Eastern Railroad than on any other through line in Washington Territory.
On the line of the Northern Pacific Railroad the timber is abundant,
but too small for the mill, except in a very few spots. The other roads
show but little left close by, and the trees never had the size of those
of Snoqualmie Valley. The West Coast road, which will be tributary to
the Lake Shore Railroad, will pass through good forests; but,
according to my information, the forests on the line of the Lake Shore road are the
very best in Washington Territory.
The forest of mill timber beginning in sight of Seattle, continues with some
intermissions to the top of the Cascade Mountains. It increases in size and quantity
to a point far up on the mountain side, and the trees continue of good size all the
way to the top. Crossing the Cascade Mountains, on the east side the trees are
quite numerous, but smaller than on the west side, though some of them can be
sawed. Continuing eastward, the trees get fewer and smaller, and change from fir
to ordinary yellow and bull pine. In the plateau country of the Great Bend there
are only scattered groups of stunted trees to be seen, and, excepting a few skirts
along the bluffs of the Columbia, no forests of mill timber are to be met with until
after passing the Idaho line.

76. The forests
described.
Forests of
Raging River.
Forests near
Hop Ranch.
Superior to the
Long Leaf
forests of the
Southern
States and of
the Mississippi
Bottom.
I will now review this timber belt with more particularity. After leaving
Seattle, there is a somewhat elevated country between the lakes and
Puget Sound, which is largely covered with mill timber of medium size. Perhaps
two feet and a half would be about the average diameter of the logs. Here, as
everywhere, the principal timber, and that most cut and valued, are the Douglas fir
and the white cedar.
Continuing along Lake Samamish, and up Squak Creek, these forests continue on
both sides at some distance off. A large body of moderately sized timber runs off
toward the northeast, covering the hills which lie in front of the mountain range.
Passing the Gilman mines, we meet but little large timber until we enter the valley
of Raging River. Here there is an almost unbroken forest of splendid
timber, extending from near the mouth as far up as I went, namely,
ten miles from the mouth. The mill timber here would average from six to ten
inches more in diameter than that we passed near Lake Washington; and there
seemed to be a vast body of it in this valley. As far up on the hill or mountain side
as I went, or could see, the trees retain their large size.
At the upper coal mines I found this to be the case to the mountain top, 800 or
900 feet above the river. The trees were not only large, and thick on the ground,
but extremely tall and free from knots. I was told that the heavy forest continued a
considerable distance above the upper coal mines.
In the Snoqualmie Valley proper are to be found the largest forests
and the largest trees. The farmers and hop-growers have destroyed
thousands of acres of the finest timber trees on the continent, but many, many
thousand acres still remain unbroken. Between Falls City and Hop Ranch the
wagon road passed through two or three miles of this magnificent timber. Turning
from the road, I ascended the Snoqualmie Mountain, and all the way up to the
coal openings I traveled in the densest forest of the largest trees I had ever seen.
Passing the cleared country about Hop Ranch, I again plunged into one of these
monstrous forests, and traveled three or four miles through it without a break. The
sun never touches the earth in these forests. The trees rise to the height of 250
feet or upward, and lock their branches together far overhead, shutting out the
sunlight and awing the traveler. Their trunks seem to stand absolutely straight and
plumb from the ground to the top. I had studied the long-leafed pine forests of
Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. I had traveled for a hundred miles
through that marvelous forest on the Yazoo Delta, where it seemed to
me that Nature had done her utmost in covering the ground with vast
and lofty trees; but here in the Snoqualmie valley I traveled through
forests that for the size, height, and number of trees to the acre, as
much exceeded the forests of the Yazoo bottom as the latter
exceeded all other forests I had ever seen. The Snoqualmie forest also exceeds all
others I have known in the immense quantity of its fallen timber, which renders

77. Trees ten feet
in diameter.
Average nearly
five feet in
diameter and
250 feet high.
Lumber
product per
acre.
locomotion off of the trails extremely slow and difficult. The railroad ascends the
South Fork of the Snoqualmie. I did not go up the Middle Fork, but was told that
the timber is fine in that valley also.
The little Salal Prairie, five or six miles long, and six miles from Hop
Ranch, breaks the continuity of the forests, but with that exception, it
continues to the pass of the mountain. As to the size of the trees, I feel sure that I
saw hundreds that would average ten feet in diameter. I measured two that were
by no means singular, and one gave a circumference of thirty-three feet (equal to
eleven feet diameter), and the other not much less. There is no doubt that many
of these trees are 300 feet in height. I think it likely that the average
height of the mill timber on the line of the road from Raging River, for
two-thirds of the way up the main mountain (a distance of over
twenty-five miles), is 250 feet, and 150 feet of this clear of limbs, and
hence of knots. And I think that the average diameter of the butt-cuts of the mill
timber would be near five feet. I found my greatest difficulty in estimating by the
eye the average number of trees to an acre. I can only say that I not only never
saw so many, but I never conceived it possible for such a number of large trees to
be supported by the soil of an acre of ground. It was not unusual to see many
trees of six to eight feet in diameter standing within ten feet of each other. I knew,
of course, that there were single trees in California, and elsewhere, larger than any
single specimens to be found here, but I did not know before going to Washington
Territory that such forests as these were to be found on the face of the earth.
I shall leave to men better versed in the details of the lumber
business than I to estimate the quantity of sawed lumber which
would be yielded by an acre of such timber, and by the many
thousands of acres which lie on, or near, the line of this railroad. Somebody
published that the average yield of the Washington Territory forests would be
30,000 feet to the acre, and this may be, because there is much small and
scattered timber; but if this amount be multiplied by six, it would not do justice to
the forests I saw in the Snoqualmie valley. There are single trees that would make
30,000 feet of lumber. It is fortunate that the fir and cedar timber are preferred by
the lumbermen, as these varieties constitute the larger portion of the forest.
Undoubtedly the hemlock will all be wanted at an early day, and so of the larch
and the less abundant trees, both evergreen and deciduous.
The bearing of these facts on the interests of the railroad are obvious. Such bodies
of timber, standing close to the road for a distance of eighty miles, would of itself
guarantee the success of the road for a generation to come.
And there is everything favorable in the position of the timber with reference to
the track, especially if the track, in ascending the mountain, can be kept near the
river. It is to be hoped that the timber along the right of way will be saved for
sawing. It would be no small item in paying for the road.

78. Agricultural
freights.
Produce of Hop
Ranch.
There will promptly spring up along the whole line both logging-camps and saw-
mills. Besides those already in operation, I heard of some large new enterprises
projected. The demand for lumber is so insatiable, and the profits of the business
so good, that an extensive fresh field like this will be entered with avidity by an
army of lumbermen.
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS.
The agricultural interest is not so large at present on the west side of
the Cascade Range, as the timber, coal and iron interests, but it is
growing, and will become exceedingly important. East of the Cascade Mountains
this will be the chief railroad interest in the beginning, though ultimately it will be
surpassed by the tonnage of the mines. I have heretofore described the soils and
vegetable products of West Washington, but would say specially with regard to the
belt we are considering, that it is destined to be a fine agricultural region. The
bottom lands of Squak Creek, and of Snoqualmie River, including all its branches
and tributaries, are extremely fertile, and suited to produce the largest crops of
grass, oats, barley, hops, and roots of almost every sort, besides most of the
overground vegetables.
HAY-MAKING IN WASHINGTON TERRITORY ALONG LINE OF SEATTLE,
LAKE SHORE AND EASTERN RAILWAY.
At my request, Mr. Wilson, the manager, and one of the owners of the
Hop Ranch, furnished me the following written statement concerning

79. Farming, fruit
and grazing
lands.
that estate, which, although larger than any other on the route, is not richer than
many other places of smaller size.
MR. WILSON'S LETTER.
Snoqualmie, W. T., Nov. 3, 1887.
Dr. Ruffner .
Dear Sir: In response to your request, I make the following memoranda. Our
Hop Farm consists of 1,500 acres of rich alluvial soil; 300 acres in hops, which
produce from 1,800 to 2,000 pounds per acre. We also raise 150 acres of
oats, producing sixty to seventy-five bushels per acre. From 100 to 150 acres
in hay, producing about three tons to the acre. Also large quantities of
vegetables, such as potatoes, carrots, turnips and onions. All kinds of root
vegetables are prolific except sweet potatoes. Fruits, such as apples, pears,
prunes, plums, and berries of all kinds, are in abundance. Last year we had
over 5,000 bushels of apples.
At present we ship in about 500 tons per year of merchandise and supplies,
and ship out, in the way of hops and other things, from 400 to 500 tons per
year. This we could double if we had railroad facilities for shipping. We employ
during the winter—that is, in November, December and January—about forty
men; the rest of the year, from 75 to 1,200 men and women. The keeping up
of this supply of labor, which all comes from Seattle, would be quite an item to
the traffic of a railroad. I presume you know that where there are a large
number of people employed, they are continually coming and going. In
speaking with a railroad contractor the other day, he told me that in order to
keep 500 men at work, he had to keep 1,500 on the road. This will also be an
important item when the mines are working above here. There are a great
many items of interest to which I might call your attention, but I will confine
myself to the above at present.
Yours, very respectfully,
T. G. WILSON,
SECRETARY AND MANAGER OF THE HOP
GROWERS' ASSOCIATION.
Besides the bottom lands, there are large areas of what might be
called table-lands, north and northeast of the lakes, which are top-
dressed with glacial drift, but which will be well adapted to the crops
of the country, and especially to fruits. And besides the table-lands, the smaller
mountains are generally adapted to agriculture, and especially to grazing. My
impression, as heretofore stated, is that, ultimately, West Washington will become
a great grazing region, though it is generally supposed that East Washington is to

80. Hops, barley
and beer.
The two great
railroads.
The Great Bend
country.
Douglas
County.
be the chief cattle country. But the mild and equable climate, and the abundance
of rain, ensures abundant forage summer and winter in West Washington. This will
be important for the feeding of cities farther south, as well as for sending canned
and refrigerator beef far and wide over the Pacific Ocean. The growth of
vegetables, especially of root crops, is something phenomenal on both sides of the
Cascade Mountains, and will furnish a large item of commerce, as is shown already
by the large shipments of potatoes from Seattle, and the multiplication of
canneries.
The hop interest is a large one, but the low prices of the last year or
two have checked the progress of this industry. Breweries have
already been established at Seattle, and elsewhere on Puget Sound, and, as the
chief materials for beer (barley and hops) are produced here so cheaply and
abundantly, we may expect Puget Sound beer to become quite a large item of
commerce.
The Snoqualmie and Squak valleys have as yet but a scattered agricultural
population, but ultimately farms will be opened along all the streams, and even
high up on the Cascade Mountains.
On the east side of the Cascade Mountains the Seattle, Lake Shore
and Eastern Railway will closely parallel the Northern Pacific Railroad
for a short distance in the Yakima River valley, but will probably leave it soon after
entering the most productive part. The route, however, may be varied to suit
circumstances, and as to this point no doubt would be if the talk of making
Ellensburg the State capital should become serious. The remark may here be
thrown in that this meeting of the two railroads in the Yakima valley will be no
disadvantage to the Seattle road, as the distance to Puget Sound is about the
same, and the incidental advantages are in favor of Seattle.
Crossing the Columbia River, the railway will enter the great plateau
which has been so fully described, and if the passage should be made
at Rock Island Rapids, it will cross the plateau at its widest part. Nothing more
need be said as to the great agricultural capabilities of the plateau country. The
Great Bend, or northern limb of the plateau, is more extensive than the southern
division, but it is a much less settled country, owing partly to want of
transportation, and partly to want of water. This scarcity of water in Douglas
County was formerly thought to be incurable without a resort to
artesian wells; but experiment has shown that wells of good water
can be obtained at moderate depths, as I was informed by Mr. Smith, a resident of
the county, and by Mr. Nash, the lawyer, who owns property there. The population
and, consequently, the business of this large county is limited at present, but it has
a large body of good land in it, which will attract settlers before long. Its soil is of
the same character as that of other parts of the plateau; but the general
impression seemed to be that it was not quite equal to the land of the Snake River

81. Lincoln County.
Spokane
County.
Price of farming
lands.
Tonnage.
Basin, or to the adjoining county of Lincoln, owing in part to a larger proportion of
rough land. I do not, however, consider this question by any means as settled. The
best area for wheat is supposed to be that which borders on Lincoln County. If the
route for the Seattle railway which is preferred by Mr. Mohr, should be adopted, it
would pass across the northern part of the county, by many persons considered
the best part, and leave the great body of the county out of reach to the
southward.
Lincoln County, through the length of which the road must pass, is
universally admitted to be among the best agricultural counties on the plateau. It
is also settling up rapidly, and has become a large producer of wheat, even at the
disadvantage of a long haul in wagons. Mr. Curtis, who buys much of the Lincoln
County wheat for his mill at Spokane Falls, says that the average yield of wheat is
twenty-five bushels per acre, though in 1886 (the year of failure) it fell to sixteen
and one-half bushels. Captain McGowan, of Lincoln County, also gave twenty-five
bushels as the average crop, and said this would hold good for the whole period
since the settlement of the county, including the bad year 1886.
By reference of the official map showing the wheat areas, it will be
seen that the Seattle railway passes through the middle of these
areas in both Lincoln and Spokane counties. The testimony was entirely favorable
in regard to horticultural and pomological products, as well as to the agricultural,
in the strict sense. The population of the three counties, Douglas, Lincoln and
Spokane, was put by Governor Semple at nearly 18,000; about 17,000 of which
was in Lincoln and Spokane. Much land has been bought with a view
to settlement as well as speculation, and this would be occupied and
cultivated pari passu with the progress of the railroad, and there yet remains much
good land which can be bought at low prices, say from one dollar to five dollars an
acre, and will attract settlers. Farming lands here will have market at the mines
north of the Columbia River, at Spokane Falls, where there will be a large city, as
well as large mills, and at Seattle, where there will be a large demand not only for
the city, but for shipping.
No reliable estimates can now be made as to what business this
Great Bend country will furnish ten to twenty years hence. We have only this to
guide us, namely, that the part of the plateau which lies south of the Northern
Pacific Railroad now furnishes 400,000 tons of wheat for transportation annually,
besides other freight and passengers; and it has not reached one-half of its
producing capacity. Mr. Mohr estimates the income from mail and express as one-
fifth the income from freight, and passenger fares as one-quarter of the whole
amount from tonnage. Though the country lying north of the Northern Pacific
Railroad is much larger in area than that which lies south of it, it may not average
as well, and cannot all be controlled by one railroad; but it will certainly furnish
large tonnage; much more than is common in agricultural regions.

82. The Seattle
railway passes
five coal fields.
Largest
shipments from
the Gilman
Mines.
Superior mining
advantages of
the Gilman
Mines.
At present the product of wheat in this region is estimated at 100,000 bushels, but
this amount would probably be doubled the first year after the railroad comes, and
rapidly increased afterward. Much of the mining business already crosses this
territory, and will, no doubt, greatly increase.
COAL.
I have, under the head of Economic Geology, described so fully the coal deposits
of Washington Territory, especially the beds along the line of the Seattle, Lake
Shore and Eastern Railway, that it remains only to show the application of these
facts to the interests of this railway. The road passes five, if not six,
separate coal fields between Seattle and the Columbia River, namely,
the Squak or Gilman mines, 40 miles from Seattle; the Washington
mines, 43 miles; the Raging River, 46 to 50 miles; the Snoqualmie Mountain, 56
miles; the Yakima (or Roslyn), 75 miles; and perhaps the Wenatchie, 140 miles.
So far as appears at present, the Seattle railway will have a monopoly of all these
fields except the Yakima or Roslyn. This it will share with the Northern Pacific; but
it will have exclusive control of the market between the Yakima and Spokane Falls,
which will be almost wholly dependent upon coal for fuel. Also, it will furnish
whatever of this coal may be wanted by the mining country north of the Columbia.
And in the Spokane Falls market it will have the advantage of bringing the coal by
a route fifty miles shorter.
The coal on the west side of the Cascade Mountains will go to Seattle for
consumption and shipment, except so much as may be wanted for iron making,
and other manufacturing purposes along the line of the road. Coke will be in
demand for furnaces, foundries, engines, etc., in Seattle, Spokane Falls, and many
other places. But its largest consumption will be in iron furnaces which will be
erected for smelting the ores of the Cascade Mountains.
The largest shipments will be from the Gilman Mines for domestic and
steam-boiler purposes. The coal must, of course, come in competition
with other coals which are mined within the basin of Puget Sound, but it has an
advantage over all competitors in the ease, safety, and cheapness with which it
can be mined. This will not, of course, be realized for the first few months whilst
driving the entries, but when the mines shall have been fully opened I think it will
be without rival in the cost of production. This will be evident from
the following report made to me by Mr. Whitworth, showing the
disadvantages in the mode of working the other mines of the
Territory. The terrible explosion which has lately occurred in the deep
mines of Vancouver's Island shows that the Canadians are also working at a
disadvantage.

83. Mr. Whitworth's
testimony.
MR. WHITWORTH'S LETTER.
"At Cedar River the coal is all hoisted from a slope, and the
gangways run at right angles to the slope, and the 'brests' at right
angles to the gangways, or parallel to the slope, or nearly so. The angle of the
pitch is about 18°. And the cars are run up to the 'brests' to the working face
of the coal, and coal shoveled into the cars. A movable windlass or drum
allows the loaded car to haul the empty one up to face of coal.
"At Black Diamond the coal is all hoisted from a slope; gangways at right
angles to slope, and 'brests' at right angles to gangways, and parallel to slope.
This pitch is a little steeper, about 20° or 22°, but not sufficiently steep for the
coal to run. Therefore it has to be shoveled down the slope of the 'brest,' or
the 'brest' floor temporarily ironed; and is loaded into car from 'brest' chute.
"Franklyn has both systems, hoisting up a slope, and working on a water-level
gangway. They have two slopes, one outside and one inside. This pitch is 45°
and more. Gangways run on the strike of veins, and 'brests' up the pitch. Coal
runs freely on the floor of 'brests.'
"What it costs now to mine at Newcastle I do not know. The cost of coal
above the water-level gangway put into the railroad cars varies from 85 cents
(one month only) to $1.50 per ton; $1.10 about the average. For the first six
months I do not think we (at Gilman) can calculate less than $1.25 per ton.
"The veins which they work or have worked at Newcastle are No. 4—No. 2, as
it is called, which is really Nos. 1 and 2 united—and Bagley vein. No. 4 is
worked out on two lifts, the water level, and the one below. The third lift they
have not cross-cut to it, as the slope is on No. 2. No. 2 is almost closed on
third lift east of Coal Creek. First two lifts, of course, are worked out. And west
of Coal Creek the working has progressed nearly to the boundary of their
land, and passed the division of the vein into Parts 1 and 2; so that they are
getting but little coal out of it. But most of the coal comes from Bagley. Bagley
is never worked, or but slightly, when the others are furnishing plenty of coal.
Bagley there consists of two portions of about seven feet each, with one to
two feet of rock and slate between. In the lower bench there is about four or
four and a half feet of good coal; the rest is bony. And in the upper bench
there is from three to four feet of good coal, and the balance bony. When they
are pressed for coal there is a strong temptation to mine and ship the entire
fourteen feet of coal, and bony coal, as it all looks quite well. This temptation,
I know, under the old administration, was sometimes yielded to, and I have
supposed such was the case now. In fact, in getting that coal some time since
for home use, I have several times seen the straight Bagley from top to
bottom in the ton. No. 2. The united vein at its best is ten and a half feet,
between splendid walls, about one and a half inch mining on the bottom, and

84. Cost of mining
coal.
Cost at Gilman
Mines.
Prices of coal.
a parting near the centre one inch thick. That never disappeared, but
increased both ways until the veins were finally separated. No. 2 separate was
about five feet clean, at least with no permanent partings. No. 1, about four
and a half feet of coal with a three-inch streak of fine clay eighteen inches
from the top, the balance clean."
So much from Mr. Whitworth.
Governor Semple puts the prime cost of the coal of the Puget Sound
basin generally at from $2.00 to $2.30 per ton, delivered at tide-
water; which is, I suspect, below the fact. James F. Jones, in charge of mines on
the Northern Pacific Railroad in the Puget Sound basin, reports the cost per ton at
the mines delivered on the cars as ranging from $1.00 to $2.50 per ton, averaging
$1.75.
The minimum of cost is reached when the seams are of good thickness and
comparatively free from slate, and can be entered on the end by a level entry
above water and be mined upward; to which may be added natural pitch enough
in the seams for the coal to be self-loading; that is, to run by gravity from the
upper gangways to the cars on the main entry. And to these conditions may be
added a number of different parallel seams close together with their bluff ends all
coming up to a line in the most convenient way for entry and delivery. It is rarely
the case that such an assemblage of favorable conditions can be found, and where
they exist the successful future of the property is absolutely assured.
In my opinion, the Gilman coal seams combine all the advantages
above mentioned, and if allowed ordinary rates of transportation, can
always be mined at a profit. As long as the Newcastle seams could be worked
above water-level the average cost per ton was $1.10, but they never had the
same advantages there as at Gilman, and most of their mining has been
downward. $1.00 per ton is certainly high enough for Gilman after the entries are
driven in sufficiently for large operations. If Mr. Whitworth succeeds in putting out
the coal at $1.25 for the first six months, as he thinks he can, there need be no
fear as to the future.
The selling price of coal on Puget Sound has ranged from $3.00 to
$5.00 a long ton in former years, averaging $4.00—the price being the same for
the product of all the different mines. Mr. Whitworth reports the price this winter at
$6.50 a ton for all (including Newcastle), except Cedar River, which is $5.00. The
distances from Puget Sound to Portland and to San Francisco, the principal
markets, are: to San Francisco, between 800 and 900 miles by water; to Portland,
450 by water, and 150 by rail. There is now rail connection all the way to San
Francisco. The average cost of sending coal to San Francisco, either from Puget
Sound or Vancouver's Island, is $2.00. The usual price in San Francisco and
Portland has been from $4.25 to $6.00 for coarse, and from $2.75 to $3.75 for

85. Handling the
iron ores.
Furnace sites
Salal Prairie.
Charcoal
cheaply
produced.
small. On the 1st of February, 1888, the cargo price in San Francisco was—for
Coos Bay coal, $9.50; Seattle coal, $10; South Prairie, $10; Nanaimo (domestic),
$10; Nanaimo (steam), $12; Lehigh, $18; Cumberland, $12.
These figures make it evident that a good margin of profit may be calculated on
from the Gilman coal. Mr. Whitworth will not be able to get his bunkers up until he
has his road in operation to the mines; but, with temporary chutes, he can load
100 tons a day from the time the road opens, say March 15th. In six weeks after
beginning he expects to increase to 300 tons a day, and one month later he can
make the output 600 tons a day. As the headings are driven in the product can be
increased to almost any desired amount.
The Washington Mines, on Squak Creek, I did not see; and concerning the Raging
River Mines I have no settled convictions. As to the coking coal on Snoqualmie
Mountain, we may expect important developments. Undoubtedly the new road will
promptly enter upon a large and increasing coal business.
IRON ORE.
The question here respecting iron ores along this road is not as to
their quantity, or quality, or as to their utilization, but only as to what
road or roads will handle the business that will arise from this source. Naturally the
bulk of it belongs to the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway, and at one time
there seemed to be no doubt that large iron-works would at once be established at
Salal Prairie by the Moss Bay Company, of England; but the east shore of Lake
Washington has finally been settled upon for the great plant of this wealthy
company; which of itself will go far to establish the natural monopoly which the
Lake Shore Railway seems to have of the ores on the west side of Cascade
Mountains. And in regard to the magnetic ores generally, this road, from its
location, would seem to be master of the situation. All the iron ore on the west
side of the mountain is owned by men whose interests are identified with Seattle,
and with this line of railroad. The best point for manufacture in itself
considered, the best chance for fuel, the best line for transportation, the best point
for trading and for shipment, are all on the line of the Seattle Railway. Good
furnace sites may be found at many points, but Salal Prairie is a spot which seems
to have been set apart by nature for a manufacturing town. It lies
near the intersection of the valleys of the South Fork and Middle Fork branches of
Snoqualmie River, is about six miles long and three miles wide, is flat, dry,
salubrious, and well supplied with water. It has a natural outlet to the South, as
well as to the east and west, is convenient to the iron ore and limestone of both
the Middle and South Fork, and not far distant from the ores of Cle-ellum. It is less
than ten miles from Snoqualmie coking coal, and fifteen miles from
the Green River coals. And, what I think is a still better resource for

86. Quantity of
charcoal to the
ton of iron.
Bessemer ores
commonly
distant from
fuel.
fuel, it is in the midst of the great Snoqualmie forests, where saw-mills will soon be
felling the timber, and providing an endless supply of slabs and refuse tree-tops,
from which charcoal could be manufactured at very small expense.
It is well known that charcoal is the best of all fuels for making iron, because of its
freedom from damaging impurities. Its expensiveness generally prevents its being
much used now, but here the cost need not exceed five cents per bushel, and 100
to 120 bushels would suffice for a ton of iron. The only question concerning the
charcoal made from fir timber is as to its ability to bear the burden in a tall stack.
It is becoming common now to utilize the by-products of wood, formed during its
conversion into charcoal, by a process which makes the charcoal stronger. But all
difficulty on this point can be relieved by conforming the size of the furnace-stack
to the strength of the charcoal. This is the only fuel which has ever been used on
the Pacific coast for the smelting of iron ores. These enterprises have not been
particularly successful thus far, rather because of the inferior quality of the ore,
than from any defect in the fuel. The bog ore and the limonites which were used
at Irondale, near the Canada line, and at Oswego on the Willamette, were
generally low in iron and high in phosphorus, and the bog ores were soon
exhausted.
At Irondale, near Port Townsend, recourse has been had to a
refractory ore obtained on Texada Island, in Victoria Sound, on which
a duty of seventy-five cents a ton has to be paid, and which requires
a large amount of fuel for smelting it, perhaps as much as 150 bushels of charcoal.
But Mr. H. T. Blanchard, who is interested in the Irondale Works, says in a late
letter (November 29, 1887):
"It is perfectly safe to rate charcoal at six cents per bushel, and the quantity
necessary to make a ton of pig-metal not to exceed 120 bushels, with a good
chance of getting it down to ninety bushels per ton with fair ores."
The iron ores of the Cascade Mountains will be taken to some extent to mix with
the inferior ores near the coast, but they will be chiefly worked into Bessemer-pig
and steel rails. Steel-making ores are not common anywhere, and are
widely separated from fuel, which makes them very costly in the
States east of the Rocky Mountains. This well-known fact is alluded to
by Mr. Swank, in his report on the Iron Trade of 1886, in the following
words:
"It is also a fact worthy of notice, for which geologists may find a reason, that
nowhere in this country are our best steel-making ores found in proximity to
mineral fuel, either anthracite or bituminous, while in some parts of the Lake
Superior region, even timber suitable for the manufacture of charcoal is almost
wholly wanting."

87. High cost of
Lake Superior
ores.
Cost of
producing ore
in
Pennsylvania.
Cost of
Bessemer-pig
in Snoqualmie
Valley.
Large market
for steel rails.
The most important deposits of steel ores in the United States are on
Lake Superior and in Missouri; but these ores are smelted chiefly by
the Connellsville coke of Pennsylvania, which is 700 to 800 miles
distant. The Cranberry ores of North Carolina are some hundreds of miles from
fuel. A late number of the Iron Trade Review quotes the prices of ore at Cleveland,
Ohio, the principal receiving point of Lake Superior ores, as follows:
Specular and Magnetic Bessemer,per ton$7.00 to $7.50
Bessemer Hematites "5.75  to  6. 70
The same authority gives the cost of the ore and coke necessary for
the production of a ton of iron in Mahoning Valley district, at $9.90
for the ore and $4.50 for the coke = $14.40. To this must be added
about $4.25 for flux, labor, management, interest and repairs, making
a total of $18.65 as the cost of producing one ton of pig-metal.
Thus the superior advantages of the Snoqualmie Valley are readily
seen. Here are steel ores, two kinds of fuel, and the limestone in
close proximity. Putting the fuel at more than I think it would cost;
putting the cost of mining the ore at the maximum cost at Cranberry,
N. C., and freight at double price, and we have as the cost of a ton of Bessemer-
pig, as follows:
Ore $3 00
Fuel 6 00
Flux 50
Labor and management2 00
Interest and repairs 1 50
$13 00
This is lower than the present cost of producing Bessemer-pig anywhere in the
United States, according to the best of my information; and at the same time the
market is better. The demand for steel rails in the Rocky Mountain
country and in the Pacific States is, and will be, large and permanent,
while the demand in China and other foreign countries will constantly increase.
And so will it be with machinery and tools of all kinds, agricultural, mining and
manufacturing. This demand will be both domestic and foreign, and constantly
enlarging. And it may be safely asserted that no railroad exists, or can be built
anywhere in the Pacific States, which will compare with the Seattle, Lake Shore
and Eastern Railway in its control of the iron business.

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