HUDLESTON: GEOLOGY OF PALESTINE. 
175 
1. History of the investigation of the Region. — This branch of the 
enquiry is by no means devoid of interest, and might almost form a 
subject of itself, independent of the others. Of course we could go 
back as far as the days of the Crusades, for even then the fossil fish 
of the Lebanon were not unknown, since Richard Coeur de Lion is 
said to have noticed them ; but for our purpose it will suffice to 
begin with the present century. 
What we must now term the first occupation of Egypt by the 
British forces, in the early part of the present century, drew 
particular attention to the East, but such was the disturbed 
state of affairs during the period of the revolutionary wars 
that travelling was for the most part suspended, though some 
of the Royal Engineers about this time made short surveys in 
portions of Palestine. It is evident, however, that the occupation 
of Egypt had drawn attention to the East, for there was a 
meeting held of the Palestine Association , as it was then called, 
on the 24th of April, 1805. What they did is not known to me, 
though there is a tradition that agents were sent out, who got no 
further than Malta. Anyhow no active steps were taken by this 
body after the year 1809, and the Association may be deemed to 
have led a suspended existence up to 28th January, 1834, when a 
meeting was called, Mr. Bartle Frere in the chair, which resulted in 
the balance of its funds, amounting to £135 9s. 8d., being handed 
over to the Royal Geographical Society , and the original Palestine 
Association was, I presume, thenceforth regarded as defunct. But 
this is anticipating : we must now revert to an earlier date. At 
the close of the great war there was an immense increase of travel- 
ling all over the world, and the East very naturally came in for its 
share. Some of you are perhaps acquainted with the interesting 
narrative of Irby and Mangles, and with the classical work of Burk- 
hardt, which, together with others published before 1830, laid the 
foundation of our physical knowledge of Sinai and Palestine. 
Geology in those days was quite in its infancy, yet Burkhardt 
had an eye in that direction. But the first really geological work 
was one by Botta, entitled Observations on Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon , 
published in the Memoirs of the Geological Society of France, in 
