16 
of a mile to an inch, and it is printed in twenty-six sheets. 
The smaller maps are reduced from it to a scale of three-eighths 
of an inch to a mile, and each of them occupies six sheets. 
The maps on both scales exhibit all the waters and water- 
courses, roads and tracts, mountains and hills, plains and 
valleys, woodlands, plantations, and remarkable trees, the 
cultivation of olives, figs, vines, palms being expressly dis- 
tinguished. Towns and villages, whether inhabited, deserted, 
or in ruins, caverns, tombs, cisterns, and rock - cut presses 
for oil and wine, wells, springs and fountains, and every 
vestige of antiquity, are comprehended in this Survey. The 
altitudes of many prominent heights and places above the 
sea are also given. The work was executed by Surveyors 
of the Corps of Royal Engineers, trained on the Ordnance 
Survey of Great Britain, and permitted to undertake it by 
favour of the Government, and the officers in charge were 
Lieuts. C. R. Conder and H. H. Kitchener. 
It will be perceived that the Survey is at present confined 
to the country on the west of the Jordan, including the 
ancient sites of Dan on the north and Beersheba on the south. 
This includes so large and important a part of the Holy Land 
that it was determined by the managers of the Fund to proceed 
at once with the application of the Maps to the illustration of 
the Old and New Testaments, without waiting for the exten- 
sion of the Survey to the east and south, where many very 
interesting Biblical and other historical sites remain to be 
explored, being often quite unknown. The Survey has been 
already commenced on the east of the Jordan, and I would 
strongly urge upon the members of the Victoria Institute, and 
all other lovers of the Bible and students of history, the claims 
of that interesting part of the Survey upon their liberal support. 
It was my good fortune formerly to direct, in Stanford's Geogra- 
phical establishment, the preparation of the Biblical maps for 
Dr. Wm. Smith's Ancient Atlas, when all that could be done 
with the materials existing before the present Survey was 
attempted, under the learned editorship of Mr. Grove. This 
and other labours in Biblical geography probably led the 
managers of the Fund to request me to bring my old studies 
to bear upon the new Survey. I heartily availed myself of the 
opportunity, and I am here to-night to give you some idea of 
the work. 
The study of Biblical geography is placed by the present 
Survey to a great extent on a perfectly new footing. The 
abundant local details of the most interesting and dramatic 
Biblical narratives had escaped out of knowledge, in numerous 
instances, before the beginning of the Christian era and the 
