TOPOGRAPHY OF DOR. 



Beginning at the headland of Mount Carmel, the great Maritime 

 Plain of Palestine extends southwards for a distance of about one 

 hundred miles. This plain naturally divides into three portions'. 

 The north corner, lying between Mount Carmel and the Mediter- 

 ranean, begins as a narrow pass some two hundred yards wide be- 

 tween the Carmel headland and the sea, gradually broadening until 

 at its southern extremity, the Crocodile River (mod. Nahr el- 

 Zerka), it is eight miles wide. Its length from Carmel to the 

 Zerka is nearly twenty miles. From the Crocodile River the 

 second portion of the Maritime Plain, the Plain of Sharon, widen- 

 ing from eight miles to twelve, rolls southward some forty-four 

 miles to the Nahr Rubin and a line of low hills to the south of 

 Ramleh. To the south of the Plain of Sharon, the last division, 

 the Plain of Philistia, extends a distance of forty miles to the River 

 of Egypt (the Wady el-'Arish). 



In the southern part of the first of these divisions lies the village 

 Tantura, successor to the ancient city of Dor". Tantura lies in 

 northern latitude' 32° 36' 35", in eastern longitude from Green- 

 wich 34° 54' 40". The ruins of Dor, known as el-Burj or Khiirbet 

 Tantura*, are located about one-half mile directly north of the 

 modern town. Dor proper lies therefore in latitude 32° 36' 50", 

 longitude 34° 54' 40". Its distance from the headland of Carmel 

 and from Haifa is about fourteen and one-half miles south. It is 

 about six and one-half miles south of 'AthlTt, which was the chief 

 city of the district during the Crusades\ Caesarea^ built by 



' G.A.S., Hist. Geog., pp. 147 f. 



2 C. R. Conder, in Hast. D.B. s. v. Dor, seems now inclined to reject 

 his earlier identification of Tantura with Dor {P.E.F.Q., 1874, p. 12; S. 

 W.P. Mem. II, p. 3). The location of the town, however, agrees so well 

 with the data at hand that nearly all writers accept the identification as 

 practically certain. 



3 P.E.F., Map of Palestine, Sheet 7, I j ; Ptolemy (Nat. Hist. V, 15, 5) 

 locates Dor in 66° 80', 32° 40'. 



'S.W.P. Mem., II, p. 7. 



5 Then called Castellum Peregrinorum (Buhl, Geog., p. 211); P.E.F.Q. 

 1874, p. 12. 

 * Anciently ^rpdruvoq Uvpyog (G.A.S., Hist. Geog., pp. 186 ff.). 



