559th OEDINAEY GENEKAL MEETING. 



HELD (BY KIND PERMISSION) IN THE ROOMS OF THE 

 ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS, ON MONDAY, 

 JUNE 22nd, 1914, at 4.30 p.m. 



The Eight Hon. The Eakl of Halsbury, F.E.S., President 

 •OF the Institute, Occupied the Chair. 



The Minutes of the preceding Meeting were read and confirmed and 

 the Secretary announced the election of Mr. Arthur Spencer Chamber- 

 lain as Member of the Institute, and of Mr. Smetham Lee as Associate. 



The President then called upon Col. Sir Charles M. Watson, K.C.M.G., 

 C.B., M.A., to deliver the Annual Address. 



ANNUAL ADDRESS. 



JERUSALEM, FAST AND PRESENT. 



(With about 50 Lantern Illustrations.) 



By Col. Sir Charles M. Watson, K.C.M.G.,C.B.,M.A., Chairman 

 of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Exploration Eund. 



Summary. 



BEGINNING with tlie reproduction of a raised niap of 

 Palestine, the original of which is to be seen at the 

 offices of the Palestine Exploration Eund, the 

 Map of Lecturer briefly sketched the physical features of 

 Palestine. the country, and also traced the lines of its distant 

 railways. In particular, he devoted attention to 

 the line which ran — if a railway could be said to run, when it 

 went at not much more than a walking pace — from the seaport 

 of Jaffa, on the site of the Joppa of the Acts of the Apostles, 

 up to Jerusalem. 



Jerusalem is one of the most interesting cities in the world, 

 a city that has a history of more than four thousand years and 

 that holds the position of a sacred city for three of the most 

 important religions of the world — the Jewish, the Christian, 

 and the Mahomedan. It has been destroyed over and over 

 again, but has always risen from the ruins, and now in the 

 twentieth century, more than three thousand years since it was 



