1888. | NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 13 
transferred from the waterless desert to a land of vineyards and 
olive trees, and waving fields of grain, and villages teeming with 
semi-civilized inhabitants. 
The hill country of Palestine consists of an almost continuous 
backbone of limestone, extending for a hundred miles. The 
general height of this narrow plateau is about 2,600 feet. Here 
and there it rolls in rounded summits to a height of 2,900 or 
3,000 feet. A few of the peaks, as Olivet, Nebi-Samwil, Ebal, 
Gerizim, Tabor, and Little Hermon, are more pronounced, and 
the last four stand out as distinct mountain masses of consider- 
able elevation above the general surface of the plateau, and from 
1,600 to 3,000 feet above the sea. The rocks of Palestine are 
not so rich in fossils as those of Lebanon, but nevertheless con- 
tain many interesting species. My absence from our museum 
and any notes will make it impossible to cite the names of 
species. The plateau breaks away gradually to the west, and 
much more precipitously to the east, where it overlooks the deep 
valley of the Jordan. Narrow ravines furrow its sides, and on 
the east become profound chasms, few of which, however, carry 
any water save during the heavy storms of winter. 
The soil which once covered the mountains of Palestine to 
their summits has been washed into the valleys, and these gray 
hills are often quite barren. But the limestone is constantly 
disintegrating, and the peasants terrace up the mountain side, 
and irrigate the new made land; it produces astonishing har- 
vests. 
Between Galilee and Samaria is the depression of the plain of 
Esdraelon, pushing far eastward, and lowering the backbone of 
the chain of hills so much that some English engineers have 
conceived of the possibility of piercing this isthmus with a canal, 
and letting the waters of the Mediterranean into the Jordan 
valley, a project to which the Turks will never give their con- 
sent. Near the eastern extremity of this valley there are out- 
cropping of traprock. The frequent earthquakes in this region 
show that there is still unexpended plutonic force beneath it. 
Between the northern border of Galilee“and the southern 
slopes of Lebanon is a strip of rocky plain, about fifteen miles 
broad, elevated only a few hundred feet above the sea. Through 
this plain the Leontes and the Zahardni force their way westward 
to the sea. 
Mt. Carmel is an isolated spur of the north and south range, 
tending northward from the latitude of Samaria to the coast at 
Haifa. Conder has found wild deer in this secluded range. It 
ely wooded in places and has an interesting fauna and 
ora. 
Lebanon rises from the plain which separates it from Galilee, 
