660 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE, 
mighty deeds of arms, a fiction of the poet’s brain? Did Homer invent the 
scenes, the events, the men and women, of the /ad? These are the questions 
which this intrepid explorer in the field of classic legend took upon himself to. 
answer. He had a profound faith in Homer—an unwavering belief in the reality 
of his narrative; and the task he undertook was to prove the objective corres- 
pondence of the little corner of Jand in the extreme north-western corner of Asia 
Minor with the poetic description of the //Zad, and that the hill of Hissarlik is the 
very place where stood the ‘‘ Holy City’’ around which was enacted the ‘‘ Tale 
of Troy Divine.” i 
Piotf the reader will look at a classical map of the country around the Helles- 
pont, he will find in Troas a point south of the strait (the actual distance is three 
miles) marked Novum Ilium. On modern maps this name will be changed to 
Hissarlik. For centuries after Homer’s time, this was the accepted site of Troy. 
But about 200 B. C, a writer known as Demetrius of Scepsis challenged the 
identity of Novum Ilium with the ancient Ilios of Homer. His arguments were 
of the flimsiest character; but, unfortunately, his views were adopted by Strabo, 
the geographer, whose authority was respected till the end of the last century. 
It is not certain where Demetrius and Strabo placed the site, but it is supposed 
to have been at a place now known as Akshi Kioi (rather more than four miles in 
a direct line southeast of Hissarlik. In 1785, Lechevalier, a French traveler 
who had made a hasty examination of a portion of the Troad, put forward claims 
for a place called Bounarbashi as the spot where Troy had stood in the days of its 
strength and glory. Nearly sixty years ago an attempt was made to revive the 
identity of Novum Ilium with the Homeric Ilios, by Maclaren, an English writer. 
Since then scholars have disputed over the conflicting claims of Novum Ilium and 
Bounarbashi, and there is no saying how long the controversy might have con- 
tinued, had not Schliemann gone to work with pickaxe and spade, and applied 
the sure inductions of archeological science to the settlement of the question. 
He has spent years in Jaying open the soil at both places, and has produced in- 
contestable proofs in favor of the place which Greek tradition had asssociated 
with the story of the /Zad. Three feet below the surface of the hill at Bounar- 
bashi he struck the solid rock, and there were neither ruins nor remains to show 
that any city had ever stood there. Mr. Philip Smith has said that ‘‘ the theory 
of Lechevalier is a mere hypothesis, born from the fancy of a modern traveler, 
without the slightest historical or traditional foundation.” To this might be 
added that not a single fact or principle of archeology can be quoted in support 
of the Frenchman’s theory. 
Dr. Schliemann went to work in a very different spirit, and pursued very dif- 
ferent methods, from any of his predecessors. He organized an extensive estab- 
lishment at Hissarlik, and labored with a zeal that knew no bounds. His. 
excavations extend to a depth of 521% feet from the surface. In penetrating to 
this depth he passed through a series of seven strata, differing from each other in 
many particulars. In his opinion these strata correspond to a succession of cities 
