328 



GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS AND DISCOVERY IN 1876. 



table-land and a valley there ; he bases his sup- 

 position on the similarity of the names. A 

 place called Suffa he suggests may be the 

 much searched-for Ramathaim Zophim, both 

 on account of its location, which is within 

 Mount Ephraim, and close by the Beth-Horon, 

 which was given to the Kohathite Levites, and 

 on account of the name, which is the form 

 into which the ancient name would naturally 

 change : there is at Suffa a sacred place called 

 Sh'ehab ad. Din, " the Hero of the Faith ; " and 

 in the neighboring country is a place which 

 would answer to Sechu. Conder bases most 

 of his identifications on etymological resem- 

 blances, which in many cases are confirmed by 

 records of distances or ancient descriptions in 

 the Bible or in early writers, and in some in- 

 stances by traditions still attaching to the 

 places ; such derivations are, for instance, the 

 following : El Farriyeh for Affarea, mentioned 

 by Hieronymus ; Ardbuneh for Arbol, said in 

 the Onomasticon to be nine miles from Me- 

 giddo ; El Ghannam for Anem, a city of Issa- 

 char, two miles south of Jenin ; for Kedesh, a 

 town of Issachar, an ancient site near Megiddo, 

 called Tell Abu Kadis ; Allar for Ana, a town 

 of Manasseh ; Ain elJemain, " the Fountain of 

 Two Armies," near Gilboa, for the Well Harod, 

 where Gideon divided his men ; Ahanarath, 

 within the borders of Napthali, is found in the 

 modern En-Narah ; in the plain of Beisan is a 

 place called Gilgal, a ford whose name signifies 

 " the Ford opened by God," and a place bear- 

 ing the name of Rahab. The great map of Pales- 

 tine will be published for the Palestine Explo- 

 ration Fund, by Stanford, in twenty-six sheet*, 

 on the scale of the drawings, that is, one mile 

 to the inch. A smaller map, scale three miles 

 to the inch, will be engraved upon copper, 

 while the larger size will be lithographed. 

 The notes of Lieutenant Conder will be di- 

 gested and published in time. 



Dr. Selah Merrill and party, who visited the 

 Jordan Valley and the eastern shore of the 

 Dead Sea, upon the instructions of the com- 

 mittee of the American Palestine Exploration 

 Society in Beyrout, spent eighty days in the 

 excursion, exposed to constant storms and 

 severe heat, returning May 5, 1876. They ex- 

 amined in a thorough manner the botany and 

 geology of the regions explored, as well as the 

 zoology and archaeological remains. They 

 collected two hundred ornithological speci- 

 mens, and discovered two new groups of sul- 

 phur springs and a beautiful natural bridge in 

 a wady north of the Yabis. North of the 

 Nimrin they came upon a singular row of 

 large pits. They viewed attentively the mounds 

 existing at the northeast corner of the Dead 

 Sea, which it is sought to connect with por- 

 tions of the thirteenth chapter of Joshua and 

 the thirty-second chapter of Numbers 



A series of ninety-nine photographs of 

 ancient Greco-Roman and Byzantine build- 

 ings in Syria have been issued by the Ameri- 

 can Palestine Exploration Society. 



ASIA. Another expedition to the Yenisei 

 and Nova Zembla, under Nordenskiold, left 

 Tromso in the steamer Ymer, on the 25th of 

 July, and, after careful observations and marine 

 investigations, returned to Hammerfest on the 

 18th of September. The Swedish expeditions 

 of 1875 and 1876 have shown that, contrary to 

 expectation, the Kara Sea is much fuller of 

 animal life than the other arctic waters. The 

 marine fauna appears to be nearly uniform 

 along all coasts of both continents surrounding 

 the pole. Nearly five hundred lower types 

 have been found in the Kara Sea. The last 

 Swedish expeditions have also increased the 

 catalogue of Nova Zemblan insects to one 

 hundred species, only seven having been known 

 before, and have added considerably to the 

 knowledge of the vertebrates in those regions. 

 On the Yenisei Nordenskiold found some frag- 

 ments of mammoth-hides, and many inter- 

 esting semi-fossil shells. A large low island 

 was found unexpectedly at the mouth of the 

 river. Dr. Theel, who conducted a land-ex- 

 pedition, failed to meet the steamer in order 

 to sail home. MM. Chekanoosky and Ven- 

 gloosky, in a route survey along the river Lena 

 from Yakutsk to Ayakit, and across the tundra 

 to Olonek, made careful geological notes and 

 collected 1,500 fossils, 700 entomological spe- 

 cimens, many of them from the lower tundra, 

 and also a large number of botanical specimens. 



A Russian expedition for the examination 

 of the estuary of the Obi departed in May in a 

 small sailing-vessel. The plan was to observe 

 the natural history and make surveys of the 

 mouth of the river, and then, after going as far 

 as 14 north, return and meet the German ex- 

 ploring party and cooperate with them in the 

 exploration of the upper river. 



An expedition under Captain "Wiggins has 

 been engaged in exploring the estuary of the 

 Lena and the route between there and Arch- 

 angel, with a view of opening up trade com- 

 munication with that portion of Siberia. 



Drs. Finsch and Brehm, with Count Wald- 

 burg-Zeil, all three men of known merit in 

 geographical and scientific research, have been 

 commissioned by the German Arctic Society 

 of Bremen to study the geography and natural 

 history of the plains of the Obi and Yenisei in 

 Northern Siberia. They reached Omsk, after 

 a trying journey, in April, and proceeded to 

 Semipalatinsk, and thence direct to Sergiopol, 

 by way of the little-known Tabagatai range. 

 When last heard from they had reached To- 

 bolsk on their return-journey, having reached 

 the sea of Kara with considerable difficulty. 

 They had collected valuable and numerous 

 ethnological and zoological examples. 



According to M. Kuhn, who had an oppor- 

 tunity of studying the khanate of Khokan dur- 

 ing the Russian campaign, the khanate occu- 

 pies a deep depression, inclosed by mountains 

 on three sides and only open toward the west. 

 The climate is very pleasant ; water is plenty, 

 and the land exceedingly fertile ; it is indeed 



