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of Edinburgh, /Session 1879-80. 
In the early spring of 1873 the expedition turned south, and 
commenced to fill in the country lying between the sea-shore and 
the mountains forming the back bone of Palestine, which had been 
previously surveyed. The plain of Sharon was thus visited during 
the most healthy season, and a pleasant time was spent in a district 
previously but little known. 
Among the most interesting places visited was Athlit, the ancient 
Castel Pelegrino — a fortress of the Templars, held by the Christians 
to within a few months of the fall of Acre in 1291, and one of the 
best preserved examples of crusading architecture in Palestine. 
On Carmel the remains of an unknown synagogue were explored ; 
at Caesarea the ancient temple built by Herod the Great in honour 
of Augustus was discovered though not completely examined. 
The identification of Antipatris with the ruins of Eas el ’Ain was 
confirmed by the survey operations; and the great wood called 
Drumos by Strabo was for the first time thoroughly explored, at 
the north end of the Sharon plain and at the foot of Carmel. 
The party rested during the summer months on the heights of 
Anti-Lebanon above Damascus, and in October the ascent of Mount 
Hermon was accomplished and a night passed on the summit ; the 
latitude, longitude, and elevation of the highest peak, 9200 feet 
above the Mediterranean, being carefully determined by trigono- 
metrical and astronomical observations. 
Leaving the Anti-Lebanon on 24th of September 1873 the party 
marched to Beirut, and thence down the whole coast as far as 
Jaffa — the distance of 220 miles being accomplished in seven days. 
The survey was next extended southwards from the former limits 
— the Judean hills round Bethlehem being carefully examined 
This part of the work was of great interest in consequence of the 
number of biblical sites included in the district. The most 
valuable discoveries were perhaps those of the rock Etam, in a 
cleft of which Samson hid from the Philistines, and of the probable 
site of the village Emmaus, sixty stadia from Jerusalem, at the 
present ruin of Khamasa, south west of the Holy City. 
East of Bethlehem the desert of Judah was next entered, and 
the survey extended to the cliffs west of the Dead Sea. In this 
desert the name Silk, applying to a mountain where the scape goat 
used to be destroyed in later Jewish times, was found still surviving 
