116 REPORT— 1867. 



where slavery has least prevailed, and where the climate and soil are good, are 

 most advanced, probably as much so in civilization and the useful arts, such as 

 the working of iron &c., as were the ancient Britons about the time of the first 

 Roman invasion. 



On Exploration in Palestine. By Cybil Gkaham, F.R.G.S. 



An Association was formed two years ago for the purpose of exhaustively ex- 

 ploring the Holy Land. The first announcement of its object was met by surprise, 

 that such a work had still to be executed. Had not the scores of travellers, it was 

 asked, who annually traverse Palestine, brought all the information that could be 

 desired ? But ninety -nine out of every hundred of these rigidly follow the same 

 track, and huiTy home without adding an atom to our knowledge. 



What is proposed, in the first place, is a trigonometrical sm-vey on a large scale, 

 in which every village and every mound which marks the site of what once was a 

 village, eveiy glen, eveiy scar, every spring, every feature, be it ever so small, of 

 presumptive importance shall be delineated. 



'i'hen we wish to know the materials of which old Hermon and the Lebanon are 

 composed ; the fossil remains of ancient creatures imbedded in their sides ; the na- 

 ture of the soils; all the trees of the mountains; all the flowers of the plains which 

 cover the land as a carpet in the spring of the year ; all the fishes of the Sea of 

 Tiberias ; all the phenomena of that most remarkable of basins the Dead Sea. We 

 want, too, a catalogue of the bea.sts and reptiles, in which the crocodile will appear, 

 — of the birds, of the butterflies, of the beetles, and the smaller entities of creation, 

 in all their varieties. In short, we want that book rewritten, which has not been 

 ti-ansmitted to this day, composed by a master of science 3000 years ago, which 

 treated of plants, from the hyssop that is on the housetop to the cedar that is upon 

 Lebanon, and of the birds, and the beasts, and the creeping things, and the fishes of 

 that land. 



Again, if we turn towards the East, to the other side of Jordan, there is seen a 

 spacious field for future labour, — Moab, barren and wild ; Gilead, with its forests, 

 and Bashan, with its cities walled and unwalled, from which the Children of Israel, 

 by divine help, expelled the Eephaim. Edrei and Salcah were the limits of Og's 

 kingdom.- Edrei, entrenched in a labyrinth of rocks, is a stronghold which would 

 stiU task the unaided arm of man to conquer ; the castle of Salcah on the southern- 

 most spm- of tlie diills of Bashan commands to this day the approach to the old 

 kingdom from the east, and the descendants of the Oaks, which excited the admira- 

 tion of the sacred writers, have never ceased to cling to the range which their 

 ancestors adorned. 



In the heai't of Bashan lies Argob, that curiosity of geology, a mass of once 

 molten matter, tossed and torn and twisted and upheaved, resembling more nearly 

 the appearance of the moon, as revealed to us by Lord Rosse's telescope, than a 

 condition of things on the earth. 



Beyond the mountains winch form the barrier of Bashan, a duplicate occurs of 

 this woj'k of the convulsion of nature, and gToups of towns, scattered over the plain, 

 these many ages desert and desolate, remain as monuments of the proficiency in 

 more than one art of a very early period. 



The author in conclusion said, " I feel that this great congress, which has met to 

 consider the modes in which human research may be best conducted, will hardly 

 require of me an apology for introducing to it, and begging for it the right hand of 

 fellowship, an Association which proposes to confer, and which, if the means be 

 granted, will confer such a benefit on so many branches of knowledge. 



" We have no section for archseology, no section for history, no section for theo- 

 logy, but these sciences will likewise profit, and above all — and this is the primary 

 object that we have in view — a light will be throv.-n upon the birthplace of our 

 faith, upon the configuration and the products of the ctiuntiy, and the way of living 

 of a people far dift'erent from ourselves, enabling us to read with a more vivid in- 

 terest, and a more real intelligence, the scenes so gi-aphically depicted in the Scrip- 

 tures." 



