15 
THE REGENT SURVEY OF WESTERN PALESTINE, 
AND ITS BEARING UPON THE BIBLE. 
The subject of tbe discourse which I have been 
requested to deliver this evening is the Maps of Western 
Palestine now exhibited. They are the results of the labours 
supported by the Palestine Exploration Fund during the 
last ten years. This work of the Fund is of such a unique 
character, that it may be interesting to tell how it was 
brought about. The Fund was a consequence of the pre- 
paration of Dr. William Smith's Dictionary of the Bible , 
in three large volumes. The researches for that great work 
forced upon its numerous learned contributors, and especially 
upon Mr. George Grove, who wrote the principal articles on 
the topography of Palestine, a keen sense of the defective 
state of the geography of the Holy Land, especially with re- 
ference to the understanding of the Bible. The Palestine 
Exploration Fund was established to supply the want in 
1865. Its first work was an experimental journey made by 
Captain (now Colonel Sir Charles) Wilson, and Lieutenant, 
afterwards Major, Anderson, lately deceased, who surveyed a 
track from Damascus to the Sea of Galilee, Samaria, and 
Jerusalem, on the scale of a mile to an inch, and thus con- 
firmed the instructive character of the results that were ex- 
pected from a similar Survey of the whole area. Other pre- 
liminary journeys and the Survey of Jerusalem next engaged 
the attention and resources of the managers of the Fund; and 
it was not till the year 1872 that the complete Survey of 
Western Palestine was commenced. The maps now exhibited 
are derived from that Survey. The larger map is on the scale 
