180 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [APR. 30, 
dorso-median plate 3 to 4 inches in diameter, strongly arched, 
thick. 
Pror. GeorGE E. Post read a paper on 
THE RACES AND RELIGIONS OF SYRIA AND PALESTINE. 
Northern Syria, in the days of Ramses II., was inhabited by 
the Hittites, probably an Aryan race, whose capital was at 
Kadesh, on the Orontes, near Emessa, the modern Hems. 
Ramses achieved a great but barren victory at this point, 1350° 
B. C., but never pushed his conquests, or even retained them. 
His expedition must be considered a victorious raid, rather than 
a subjugation of the country. ‘There is every probability that 
the Hittites (perhaps not to be confounded with the Canaanite 
race of the same name in Palestine) retained their supremacy in 
northern Syria, until their sway was broken by the Greek con-. 
quest, under Alexander. 
Central Syria was settled by an Aramaic race, whose capital 
was Damascus, and whose fortress was Anti-Lebanon while the 
narrow strip of coast was the home of another branch of the 
same stock, the most ancient cities of which were Arvad and 
Sidon, and later Tyre and Acre. Lebanon was the great fortress: 
of the illustrious Pheenician stock. 
Palestine proper was settled also by an Aramaic stock, more 
or less mingled with the Hamitic races of Northern Africa. 
The country east of the Jordan was partly in the possession of 
Aramaic colonists, and partly of the Amorites, who may be only 
Aramaic mountaineers, or a mixture of Aramaic and Bedouin 
stocks. The Arabs always hovered around the eastern frontiers. 
of Palestine and Syria, and contributed their share to the fusion 
of races in that land. ; 
With the entrance of the Hebrews into Palestine, the official 
language and dominant race of that section became Hebrew, but 
the Canaanite peasantry were never wholly expelled or extir-: 
pated, and the Aramaic lunguage, as distinguished from the 
classical Hebrew, was the vernacular of the people of Palestine 
at the time of Christ. This dialect, largely mixed with Arabic, 
has survived in four villages east of Anti-Lebanon. The Syriac 
of Lebanon and the regions to the north-east, is another branch 
of the Aramaic tree. Its ripest fruit was the Peshito version, 
and the ecclesiastical literature which clustered around it. 
The first serious break in the continuity of the Hebrew- 
Canaanite stock took place in the reign of Shalmaneser, 721 
B. C., when the northern two-thirds of Palestine were depleted 
by the deportation of many of their inhabitants, and the subse- 
quent importation of Semitic or Hamitic colonists from Mesopo- 
