40 PEOP. EDWARD HDLL, LL.D., P.E.S., F.G.S.;, ON 



learned friend ; and to state, not for the first time, the 

 grounds of my behef. I must first premise, however, that 

 I accept the account of the Israehtish Exodus as given in 

 the Books of Exodus and Deuteronomy as a narrative 

 of facts — due allowance being of course made for minor 

 errors of transcription. Nor am I in the least concerned 

 regarding the authorship — whether it ^was written entirely 

 by Moses, or is a compilation from documents handed down 

 from the time of Moses and arranged Jiistorically at a 

 somewhat later period. I regard the events recorded, the 

 words spoken, and the miraculous interposition of Jehovah, 

 as having been faithfulh^ handed down to us. And as we 

 know from recent discoveries amongst the most ancient 

 records, whether engraved in brick or stone, that the art of 

 writing was understood and practised in Egypt at the period 

 of the Exodus, and recollecting how transcendently im- 

 portant to the future of the Israelitish nation were the events 

 of the Exodus, I cannot doubt but that the utmost care 

 was exercised by the scribe, or scribes, of that nation to 

 transmit to future generations a true and faithful record of 

 the wonderful events which were interwoven with that great 

 crisis in their history. This probability is in itself so strong 

 as almost to amount to a demonstration. Guided, therefore, 

 by these postvdates, and I know of no others upoii Avhich we 

 can proceed,* I will endeavour to answer the question of 

 Professor Sayce, and T shall claim to have done so if I 

 succeed in showing that there is in Arabia Petreea a 

 mountain which answers in situation and conditions the 

 requirements of the narrative. If this can be reasonably 

 demonstrated it will react on the narrative itself in favour 

 of the view of its truth ; otherwise we should have to 

 suppose that the inventor had personally visited and 

 examined the localities in oi'der to make his narrative fit 

 in with the topographical details as they existed some 3,000 

 years ago.f J do not profess to offer anything perfectly 

 new. I am glad to know that the results of personal 

 examination are in accordance with the views of other 



* Unless we sujipose with some German critics, such as Winckler, that 

 the whole account of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egyj't is a pure 

 invention — a view more incredible than the nai'rative itself. 



t 'I'he story of the siege of Troy as given in the Iliad was formerly 

 considered as a poetic fiction of Homer — but the investigations of Schlie- 

 mann have proved that the siege of Troy is based on fact, and is in the 

 main topographically coirect. 



