HISTORY ETHNOGRAPHY NATURE WINE-MAKING SITE MAP
Selected and rare materials, excerpts and observations from ancient, medieval and contemporary authors, travelers and researchers about Cyprus.
 
 
 
 
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SIR SAMUEL WHITE BAKER
CYPRUS AS I SAW IT IN 1879
page 75

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The position of the new Government House wasi well chosen. The character of the dreary plain oi Messaria is the same throughout; flat table-topped! hills of sedimentary calcareous limestone, abounding!)] with fossil shells, represent the ancient sea-bottom^ which has been upheaved. The surface of these table-heights is hard for a depth of about six feet,forming an upper stratum of rock which can be used3 for building; beneath this are marls and friable crei taceous stone, which during rains are washed away.;; The continual process of undermining by the decay oi the lower strata has caused periodical disruption of the hard upper stratum, which has fallen off in huge blocks and rolled down the rough inclines that form the sides. As the water during heavy rains percolates through the crevices of the upper stratum, it dissolves the softer material beneath, and oozing through the steep inclination, carries large quantities in solution to the lower level and deposits this fertilising marl upon the plaint below. In this manner the low ground of the richi but dreary Messaria has been formed through thej decay and denudation of the higher levels, and theI process will continue until the present table-topped hills shall be entirely washed away. The stone of thej upper surface, which forms a hard crust to the friable strata beneath, is in many places merely the roof oil caverns which have been hollowed out by the actionj of water as described. The Government House was erected upon one of| these flat-topped hills in a direct line about 1900 yards 1 from the nearest portion of Lefkosia. It was a wooden l construction forming three sides of a quadrangle. The quarters for the military staff were wooden huts, an J the line of heights thus occupied could not fail to attract

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