woodland and "shrubberies, thicker than any in Central Palestine," while
the larger trees grow in clumps or singly, and there is nowhere, as in
Lebanon, any dense growth, or even any considerable grove, of forest
trees. But the beauty of the tract is conspicuous; and if Carmel means,
as some interpret, a "garden" rather than a "forest," it may be held
to well justify its appellation. "The whole mountain-side," says one
traveller,[126] "was dressed with blossoms and flowering shrubs and
fragrant herbs." "There is not a flower," says another,[127] "that I
have seen in Galilee, or on the plains along the coast, that I do not
find on Carmel, still the fragrant, lovely mountain that he was of old."

The geological structure of Carmel is, in the main, what is called "the
Jura formation," or "the upper oolite"--a soft white limestone, with
nodules and veins of flint. At the western extremity, where it overhangs
the Mediterranean, are found chalk, and tertiary breccia formed of
fragments of chalk and flint. On the north-east of the mountain, beyond
the Nahr-el-Mukattah, plutonic rocks appear, breaking through the
deposit strata, and forming the beginning of the basalt formation
which runs through the plain of Esdraelon to Tabor and the Sea of
Galilee.[128] Like most limestone formations, Carmel abounds in caves,
which are said to be more than 2,000 in number,[129] and are often of
great length and extremely tortuous.

Carmel, the great southern headland of Phoenicia, is balanced in a
certain sense by the extreme northern headland of Casius. Mount Casius
is, strictly speaking, the termination of a spur from Bargylus; but
it has so marked and peculiar a character that it seems entitled to
separate description. Rising up abruptly from the Mediterranean to the
height of 5,318 feet, it dominates the entire region in its vicinity,
and from the sea forms a landmark that is extraordinarily conspicuous.