108 ALFRED B. RENDLE^ ESQ., D.SC, E.R.S., F.L.S., ON 



of the Roman Empire and the unfavourable conditions which 

 followed in the Holy Land many trees have been cut down, and 

 young ones have not been replanted, and although the Olive 

 occurs at the present time, it is only a poor representation of the 

 Olive cultivation which existed in the time of the kings of Israel 

 and of our Lord. The trees are small, with leaves of a pretty dull 

 green colour. They grew in the Valley of the Kedron, as you 

 see in this slide. I have a picture here of a branch of an Olive 

 tree, showing the ripe olives, which are like small purple plums. 

 In the Garden of Gethsemane there are still a few very old Olives, 

 which tradition takes back to the time of our Lord. We find 

 references in the Bible to the gathering of the Olives by beating 

 the trees with sticks. You may see this in practice in the South 

 of France at the present day. The Olive must be grafted if it 

 is to yield good fruit, and thus we find a contrast between the 

 wild Olive and the good Olive. 



The Oak tree is often confused with the Terebinth. There 

 are several kinds of Oak which are natives of Palestine, but 

 the Hebrew word sometimes means Oak and sometimes means 

 undoubtedly Terebinth. It was a Terebinth tree which was 

 associated with Abraham's occupation of Mamre, but there is a 

 very fine Oak there still known as "Abraham's Oak," which marked 

 the site of Mamre. It is 23 feet in girth, and is 93 feet in height. 



My next slide shows the Date Palm, intimately associated with 

 Syria and Palestine. The Greek for the Date Palm is fhomix 

 (whence Phoenicia). It also grows in the hotter parts of 

 Northern Africa, and, where warm enough, on the shores of the 

 Mediterranean. It is the tree of the desert, but to be successfully 

 cultivated must have a certain amount of water ; the beacon of 

 the oasis is the Date Palm. In the journey across the Red Sea, 

 after passing Marah, the children of Israel were, as we should 

 say, "fed up" and tired, and they came to Elim, where there 

 were twelve wells of water and three score Palm trees, that is 

 Date palms. It has a tall straight stem and is extremely 

 graceful, and hence the association of its Hebrew name 

 " Tamar," which is also used as a woman's name in the Bible, 

 and is applied to the beautiful river which divides Devonshire 

 from Cornwall. 



There is, no direct reference to dates in the Bible, but they 

 must have been a very common article of food. 



The branches of the Palm, which are referred to in the Bible 

 as being strewn in front of oui Lord, were the large leaves of 



