The Buka'a used to be known as Coelesyria (Strabo, xvi. 2, 21); but that word as employed by the ancients had a much more extensive application.
Anti-Lebanon rises from the plain of Hasya-Homs, and in its northern portion is arid. It has not so many offshoots as occur on the west of Lebanon ; under its precipitous slopes stretch broad steppe plateaux. It is composed in the main of Upper Cretaceous material surrounded by the Eocene rocks. Patches of basalt show through the Cretaceous. Along the western side of northern Anti-Lebanon stretches the Khashaca, a succession of hard limestone ridges, cut by a succession of grassy ravines. The eastern slopes show typical Karst features. One of the best watered valleys of Anti-Lebanon is that of Helbun, the ancient Chalybon, the Helbon of Ezek. xxvii. 18. The highest points of the range are Halimat el-Kabu (8,257 ft.), Tarat Musa (8,721 ft.) and the adjoining Jebel Nebi Baruh (7,900 ft.) ; and a third group near Bludan, in which the most prominent names are Shakif, Akhyar and Abuel-Hin. The Wadi Yafufa descends westward. A little farther south, running north and south, is the rich upland valley of Zebedani, where the Abana (Barada) has its highest sources. The latter flows eastward to the plain of Damascus, and the portion of Anti-Lebanon traversed by it was called Abana (Canticles iv. 8). From the point where the southerly continua tion of Anti-Lebanon begins to take a more westerly direction, a low ridge shoots out towards the south-west. Eastward from the Hasbany branch of the Jordan lies the meadow-land Merj 'Iyun, the ancient Ijon (I Kings xv. 2o). In both Lebanon and Anti Lebanon the southern portion is less arid and barren than the northern, and the western valleys (open to Mediterranean influ ences) better wooded and more fertile than the eastern.
is the coast region, with the locust tree and the stone pine; in Melia Azedarach and Ficus Sycomorus (Beirut) is an admixture of foreign and partially subtropical elements. The great mass of the vegetation, however, is of the maquis type. The mountain region (1,600-6,500 ft.) exhibits sparse woods and isolated trees wherever shelter and moisture permit their growth. From 1,6o0 to 3,200 ft. is a zone of dwarf hard-leaved oaks, amongst which occur the Oriental forms Fontanesia phillyraeoides, Acer syriacum and the red-stemmed Arbutus Andrachne. Between 3,700 and 4,200 ft., a tall pine, Pinus Brutia, is characteristic. Between 4,200 and 6,200 ft. is the region of the two most interesting forest trees of Lebanon, the cypress and the cedar. The former still grows thickly, especially in the valley of the Kadisha ; the hori zontal is the prevailing variety. The cypress and cedar zone ex hibits a variety of other leaf-bearing and coniferous trees mainly oaks and the rare Cilician silver fir (Abies cilicica). Rhododen drons are plentiful. Into the alpine region (6,200 to 10,400 ft.) penetrate a few very stunted oaks (Quercus subalpina), junipers and a barberry (Berberis cretica). Then follow dense dwarf bushes, thorny and grey, Astragalus and the peculiar Acantholi mon, found to within 30o ft. of the highest summits.
The spring vegetation, which lasts until July, is rich. The alpine flora of Lebanon is more closely associated with the Oriental flora of lower altitudes than it is with the glacial flora of Europe and northern Asia.
The population of the State of Great Lebanon was, in 1922, 628,863. The culture of the mulberry and silk, of tobacco, of the olive and vine, of many kinds of fruits and cereals as well as of cotton, has expanded enormously. Beirut exports silk, fruit and carpets and imports machinery, tin plates, etc. Lebanon has thick deposits of lignite coal of inferior quality. Iron has been worked from ancient times. Manufactures are of small account, the raw material going mostly to the coast, where the silk indus try is important in Beirut. Olive-oil is made, together with various wines, of which the most famous is the vino d'oro.