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to-night, and which the Palestine Exploration Fund is to carry out for the 

 purposes of geological survey in the Jordan Vallej', and the valleys leading 

 down to the Gulf of Akaba, is said to be in connexion with the scheme of 

 the Jordan Valley Canal. I have seen it so stated in different newspapers, 

 and I ought to say that it is in behalf of research alone, and is in no way 

 connected with any such scheme, having been proposed before the Jordan 

 Valley mania came on. It was originally broached last year.* There is also 

 another point connected with the explanation given as to Zoan or Tanis. I 

 am glad to see Egyptologists are at last shaking down to some agreement of 

 opinion as to the remarkable monuments at Tanis (Zoan), which seem to me 

 to be undoubted relics of the Hyksos kings, and to resemble the monu- 

 ments of Carchemish. There is a large slab at Jerabis representing 

 Hittite deities standing on the back of a couchant lion. The fore part of the 

 animal is exactly like the fore portions of the Sphinxes at San. Mariette 

 has pointed out that the warlike head of the great Hyksos invasion was in 

 all probability a band of Hittite warriors, leading on hordes of Semites, 

 similar to the Arabs of the Soudan, of whom we hear so much at the 

 present day. Ihese discoveries may help to clear iip the relations between 

 the Hittites and the Hyksos, and to prove that the wars of vengeance 

 entered upon by Eameses II. against the Kheta and Syrian allies were 

 vengeance upon them for the part they had taken in leading tlie Hyksos into 

 Egypt. I will conclude by saying that Mr. Torakins's paper bristles with 

 sharp little discoveries, and some important ones, and I can only hope that 

 the work he has pleaded for may be carried on, and that in a few years we 

 shall have some great and important discoveries from the Delta of the Nile. 

 Rev. H. G. ToMKiNS. — I spoke of the tantalizing cross questions 

 which the Nile and the Euphrates are asking of one another, and 



* Since these remarks were made, " Professor Hull has returned with 

 materials for the construction of a geological map of the Holy Land very 

 much in advance of anything which could hitherto be attempted. He 

 has traced the ancient margin of the Gulfs of Suez and Akaba to a height 

 of 200 feet above their present level, and is of opinion that at the time of 

 the Exodus there was a continuous connexion of the Bitter Lakes and 

 the Eed Sea. (Palestine Exploration Fund Journal, April, lSt<4, p. 137.) 

 The Dead Sea, he has discovered, formerly stood at an elevation of 1,400 

 feet above its present level, — that is to say, 100 feet above the level of 

 the Mediterranean. He has also found evidences of a chain of ancient 

 lakes in the Sinaitic district, and of another lake in the centre of the 

 Wady Arabah, not far from the water-shed. The great line of disloca- 

 tion of the Wady el Arabah and the Jordan Valley has been traced to a 

 distance of more than a hundred miles. The materials for Avorking out 

 a complete theory of the origin of this remarkable depression are now 

 available. They are found to difter in many details from the one furnished 

 by Lartet. The terraces of the Jordan have been examined, the most 

 important one being 600 feet above the present surface of the Dead Sea. 

 The relation of the terraces to the surrounding hills and valleys sliows that 

 these features had already been formed before the waters had reached 

 their former level. Sections have been carried east and west across the 

 Arabah and Jordan Valley. Two traverses of Palestine have also been 

 made from the Mediterranean to the Jordan." — Ed. (revised by Prof. Hull). 



