PROCEEDINGS 
OF THE 
ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 
vol. vi. 1867-68. No. 70. 
Monday, 3 d February 1868. 
Professor CHRISTISON, Vice-President, in the Chair. 
The following Address, at the request of the Council, was 
delivered by the Rev. H. B. Tristram on the Recent 
Scientific Researches in Palestine. 
Notwithstanding the intense interest of the topography of Pales- 
tine, and above all else of the Holy City itself, yet it is only within 
the life-time of the present generation that any attempt has been 
made, systematically and scientifically, to explore its sacred and 
historical sites. 
Centuries after the foundations of ancient Rome had been traced, 
years after the temples of Attica had been searched and rifled by 
Lord Elgin of their fairest ornaments, we knew no more of the 
topography of Jerusalem than could be gathered from the monkish 
chroniclers, or from Reland and Maundrell, and dreamt not that a 
buried city lay beneath the streets of modern Zion, as little 
revealed by the contour of the buildings on the surface as were the 
palaces beneath the sand mounds of Assyria. It was not until 
1838 that any attempt was made to explore any part of Palestine 
in a strictly scientific manner, whether with reference to its topo- 
graphy, archaeology, or natural phenomena. In that year the 
American Dr Robinson, in company with the missionary Eli Smith, 
made his first Biblical researches, which he continued in 1852. 
Whatever may be our opinion of the value of Dr Robinson’s 
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