October 26, 191 1] 



NATURE 



545 



human distribution and modes of life and thought in 

 Palestine, where history reaches back to a far remoter 

 period than in most lands. Eight months of the 

 spring and summer of 1909 were spent in traversing 

 the country in many directions; and since the rainfall 

 was exceptionally deficient in the early months of that 

 year, the struggle for subsistence on the margins of 

 the more arid portions was strongly emphasised. 



The first half of the book deals with the form of 

 the different parts of Palestine, and its relation to the 

 geological structure on one hand, and the distri- 

 bution, occupation, and past history of the inhabitants 

 on the other. It is this physical basis that distin- 

 guishes the present volume from many descriptions of 

 the same region. The isolated plateau of Judaea is 

 indicated as the heart of the land from its isolated 

 and uplifted position, in which it stood apart from 

 the great highways of trade which passed to the 

 north and to the south of it, while the moisture from 

 the Mediterranean gave it a moderate fertility. On 

 the west the broken foothills of the plateau form a 

 transition zone, the Shephelah, between the plateau 

 and the coastal plain alternately controlled by the 

 Hebrews of the highland and the Philistines of the 

 sea margin. But on the west, facing the valley of 

 the Jordan on the leeside of the plateau, rainfall 

 rapidly diminishes, and the desert conditions are 

 sharply contrasted with the comparative fertility of 

 the Shephelah but five and twenty miles away. Simi- 

 larly the present form of Samaria, due to original 

 folding worn down by erosion to a peneplain which 

 has since been elevated and partially dissected, has 

 opened this portion of the land to the peoples of the 

 East, the coast-dwellers, and traders from Africa, so 

 that the great trade routes and the routes of armies 

 passed through it. The peculiar characteristics of 

 Phoenicia, of Bashan, of Galilee, of the Dead Sea 

 depression and the neighbouring deserts, are in like 

 manner brought out and illustrated by the author's 

 own travels through them and the incidents therein 

 noted, presenting a most vivid picture of the land 

 and the influence of its form on the history of its 

 inhabitants. 



In the second half of the book Prof. Huntington 

 treats more especially of the climate of Palestine and 

 reviews the present-day conditions, which he contrasts 

 with the more favourable ones which existed, in his 

 opinion, at an earlier date. He has put forward the 

 same hypothesis in relation to central Asia, Greece, 

 and Asia Minor, on previous occasions, giving 

 numerous data in support of a modification of 

 climatic conditions during the past twenty or thirty 

 centuries. The lines of evidence reviewed are (1) the 

 density of the population of Palestine at various 

 periods ; (2) the distribution of woodland ; (3) ancient 

 migrations, trade routes, and lines of invasion ; (4) 

 the distribution, location, and water-supply of aban- 

 doned sites ; (5) the fluctuations of the Dead Sea. 



Under the semi-arid conditions which prevail over 

 the greater part of the country, and the strictly 

 seasonal character of the rainfall, even small de- 

 partures from the normal amount react powerfully 

 on the economic conditions throughout the area, so 

 NO. 2191, VOL. 87] 



that there must always be a strong inclination to 

 postulate definite deterioration of climate where signs 

 of former occupation now abandoned are to be seen. 

 Some of the caravan routes in northern Africa, now 

 but little used, give little sign of their practicability 

 for the great caravans which we know used them a 

 few decades ago, but which altered economic con- 

 ditions have suppressed. Human settlements cannot 

 always furnish evidence that all in a given spot 

 were occupied at the same time, and the preservation 

 of perishable objects affords some testimony that past 

 rainfall was not of great abundance. The author 

 argues that there have been pulsations in the rainfall, 

 dry periods succeeding others of greater humidity; 

 and that, on the whole, in Palestine a diminution of 

 rainfall from the earliest historical times to the 

 present era has been in progress, while the pulsations 

 within these periods often coincide with great race 

 movements. 



The importance of these alternations of dry and 

 humid periods of moderate intensity will be generally 

 admitted, and on the margins of desert regions the 

 effects will be most strongly marked; but while their 

 reality is beyond question, and the evidence for a 

 certain decrease in the average total rainfall from the 

 earlier historic times to the present day is obtainable in 

 certain areas, the direct connection of race movements 

 with such climatic variations at certain periods of 

 history seems to be scarcely established as yet. 

 But in any case, a most valuable summary 

 of the subject as it relates to Palestine is given, and 

 a survey of the history of it and the surrounding lands 

 furnishes occasion for indicating race movements and 

 events which apparently coincide with more or less 

 favourable conditions of climate. An orographical 

 map, as well as a photograph of a model of Palestine, 

 enables the form of the land to be appreciated, and 

 the photographs are most instructive, though the geo- 

 grapher will wish they had been larger. The dia- 

 grams in the text suffer from the paper being 

 unsuitedto this form of illustration. 



H. G. L. 



A GUIDE TO ELECTRICAL TESTING. 

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