674 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
tween the Mediterranean and the Serbonian marsh, recently maintained by 
Brugsch-Bey to have been their route; 2. The direct highway across the desert 
to Canaan, a military road, probably garrisoned by Egyptians; and 3d. The way 
of the Red Sea. The third is favored alike by probability and the Biblical narra- 
tive. They turned then to the southeast, but instead of crossing above Suez, be- 
tween the gulf and the bitter lakes, were Divinely directed to go further down and 
encamp by the sea, the mountains shutting them in on allother sides. Pharaoh 
endeavored to hem them in from the rear, when Divine interposition opened the 
path through the sea. 
Of three places which have been supposed to be the place of the crossing, 
that just at Suez is in every respect the most probable. This miracle was in the 
use of natural causes, a strong northeast wind laying bare some one of the ridges 
of the bottom, as even now it occasionally makes the shallows fordable. That 
the host in the dead of night and in an awful storm were emboldened to make the 
passage is itself almost a miracle. Coming out of the sea, they were in what they 
named the Wilderness of Shur or ‘‘ the wall,” from the great limestone bluff 600 
feet high which there confronted them. Turning to the south at the foot of it, 
they follow along the coast of the Gulf of Suez. Here the wells are few and the 
water bitter, being impregnated with carbonate of soda. At Marah the water 
was miraculously made sweet. They next reach the wilderness of Sin, which 
they so named from its sharp stones, a hot, arid, waterless waste, the worst place 
of all the wandering. Here the miraculous supply of manna began, and here the 
great flock of migratory quails was blown to the camp. From the Wilderness of 
Sin they turned at right angles up the Wady Feiran, a valley rapidly rising to 
higher and cooler regions. Here occurred their first contact with the inhabitants 
of the land, the Amalekites, who held the pass against them at Rephidim, a well 
selected point of great strategic advantages. This the Hebrews reached after two 
day’s march through a waterless country. Here, in their need, the water from 
the rock was given them. Dislodging the Amalekites after a hard struggle, two 
days’ further march brought them to the great valley plain opposite Mt. Sinai, 
which the Survey has identified beyond a doubt as the only place which meets the 
demands of the record. Here in comparative ease and comfort, safe from attack 
on the rear and with communication open to the friendly Midianites, Israel spent 
several months; here the Law was given and the Tabernacle set up; here the 
military organization was perfected which prepared the people to possess the 
promised land. Hardly a place in the world is so well adapted for the purpose. 
To the suggested explanation of the awful phenomena, which attended the law- 
giving, as volcanic, the lecturer said that no volcanic action could have possibly 
taken place in Sinai during the human period. The phenomena rather resemble 
the thunder storms which are of such awful force and grandeur in this region. 
Of the whole narrative of the desert sojourn it was remarked that the exact science 
of the Survey confirms it at every point, and places it beyond a doubt that Exo- 
dus and Numbers are the contemporary journals of Moses, and that he knew 
every foot of the ground. 
