PALESTINE accumulation by evaporation of the water carried into it by rivers. 3. Soil. The soil of Palestine is renowned for its fertility. As we have seen in the foregoing geological survey, a large portion of the land is composed of limestone rocks and chalk, which constantly supply the mineral constituents most useful to the crops. Considerable areas are underlaid by volcanic rocks, the soil from which fur. nishes the rich harvests of Haurân and el-Leja. Along the seacoast, and in a few places in the red sandstone mountains, the soil is sandy. While too light for the cereals this soil is well adapted to the stone pine, large groves of which are cultivated for timber and fuel. Where this soil happens to have been mingled with a fair proportion of organic constituents, and is well impregnated with iron oxide, it is suitable for certain crops, particularly leguminous plants. Much of the soil which originally covered the hills and mountains has been washed away, owing to denudation of forests and lack of human care. Wherever the bare hillsides are worked over, and the stones picked out and built into terrace walls, and the earth banked up behind them, the farmer reaps a rich reward. A large part of the mulberry trees, which furnish food for the silk worms, are cultivated on terraces constructed on steep mountain sides. Olive trees, oaks, pines, figs, vines, and even grain flourish on these terraces. Year by year more surface for cultivation is reclaimed in this way. Even where terraces are impracticable, trees may be cultivated by planting seeds in the crevices of the rocks. Were the protection to industry such as to secure its proper rewards, there would be few waste places even in the most rugged mountains. And should the now bare mountain tops be replanted with trees, a material increase of the rainfall might be expected and the season of rains would be somewhat prolonged. 4. Climate. There is no region in the world of so limited an area which has such varieties of climate as Palestine. That of the seacoast plains is similar to that of the southern coasts of Spain and Italy. That of the hill country resembles that of the hill country of the same regions. It may be characterized as subtropical or warm temperate. The palm and the banana flourish to a height of several hundred feet above the sea. On passing the watershed toward the east the climate suddenly changes to a tropical heat, and in the Jordan valley reaches the torrid temperature of the Sudân and of southern Mesopotamia and India. On climbing to the eastern plateau the climate again changes to the dry, breezy character of the Persian steppes. In the Tih, and especially in the 'Arabah, the almost perpetual hot siroccos of spring and summer, with the occasional bitter cold winds of winter, recall the climate of the Sahara. Finally, as we mount to the higher regions of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, we pass through the various stages of temperate climate to the region of perpetual snow. freezes many times during the winter. The bleak summits of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon are covered with snow for several months of the year, and isolated snowdrifts of considerable size remain on the highest peaks, and are covered by the fresh fall of the ensuing season. The average midsummer temperature of Beirut in the shade, at 10 a. M., is about 84 degrees Fahrenheit; it seldom rises to 90 degrees, and very rarely higher. The air being loaded with moisture is very sultry and enervating. At a height of two thousand five hundred feet on Lebanon, during the same season and at the same hour, the temperature is about 75 degrees Fahrenheit. The air being drier is also relatively less oppressive. The variation between day and night is usually not more than 10 degrees Fahrenheit during the summer, sometimes less. In the Jordan valley and in the basin of the Dead Sea a morning temperature of 100 to 120 degrees Fahrenheit is common in midsummer. The steamy air makes this temperature very oppressive. The temperature of the interior plains often reaches 100 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade. The night temperature is also often almost as high as that of the day. That of winter is low, and the winds, with an uninterrupted sweep of many hundreds of miles, are bitterly cold. (2) Rainfall. The warm air blowing from the North African coast over the eastern bight of the Mediterranean becomes saturated with moisture, which, on contact with the cool atmosphere of the mountain ranges, is precipitated in copious rains, more abundant in the higher regions, less so in the lower and along the coast. Much of the moisture is thus extracted from the air before it passes the watershed of western Palestine. After being driven over the torrid Ghôr, where very little rain falls, it again encounters a long range of mountains, and most of the remaining moisture is precipitated. The rainfall of eastern Palestine is therefore much less than that of western; that of Anti-Lebanonmuch less than that of Lebanon; that of Damascus is still less. The average rainfall for the coast of northern Palestine is about thirty-five inches, but the amount lessens toward the south. At Jaffa it is from fifteen to twenty inches. The downpour is greater on the mountains than on the maritime plain. On Lebanon, at a height of about two thousand five hundred feet, it sometimes reaches fifty inches, or even more. At Jerusalem it is about twenty-six. In the Jordan and Dead Sea valley it is very small. That of Damascus is not more than twenty inches. 5. Scenery. The landscape of Palestine has a strange charm for Western travelers. The atmosphere is sometimes so clear that a mountain a hundred miles away can be plainly seen. At others a dreamy mist softens all outlines and hides the ruggedness of the barren hills. The brilliant sunshine develops the coloring of the rocks and soil, of sky and sea. The cities are usually surrounded by vast orchards of figs, pomegranates, peaches, plums, apricots, apples, bananas, oranges, (1) Temperature. Frost is very rare on the lemons, citrons, and olives, and along the coast seacoast plain. The temperature seldom falls be- the feathery palm waves its graceful tuft of low 50 degrees Fahrenheit in midwinter. True leaves high over all. In the midst of this lovely snow is almost unknown. Hail, however, is com- oasis of verdure and fertility is the city with its mon. A few hundred feet above the sea water terraced roofs, its domes, its minarets, and per PALESTINE thrilling history of which it has been the witness, is one of the beauty spots of the earth. The Sea of Galilee, approached from the overhanging hills on its western side, with Hermon looking into it from the northeast, the hills of Bashan, beyond the Haurân plain to the east, and the chasm of the Jordan flanked by its inclosing mountains to the south, with Tiberias under the feet, is a dream of beauty and fascination. Everywhere the scenery of Palestine is a series of surprises to the traveler. He is astonished by the picturesque ness of the villages and towns, the grandeur of the ravines, the beauty of the groves and orchards, the number and variety of the flowers, the ravishing sunsets and moonlight and sunrises, the deep blue of the sea and sky, and the marvelous effect of the brilliant sunlight which bathes the whole landscape in crystal radiance. 6. Productions. As might be expected from the varied surface and exposure of the different parts of Palestine and its great diversity of climate, its productions are diverse and numerous haps its battlemented walls and its picturesque boa reposing on its bosom, apart from all the towers. Who is not enchanted as he looks from a neighboring hilltop over Nablûs or Sidon or Beirut or Damascus? On the hilltops or under the shade of a solitary holm oak, or amid a grove of these noble trees, a white-domed wely adds to the picturesqueness of many a view. On the most commanding headlands and mountain spurs the great monasteries form an impressive feature, which is rendered_more_attractive by the cultivated terraces and wooded hills which surround them and furnish an indication of their wealth Then there are the castles which crown the almost inaccessible jagged peaks. Few features of this land are more impressive than such majestic for tresses as Baniâs, esh-Shukif, Hunîn, and a score of others. Palestine has a greater variety of scenery than any country of the same size on the globe. The Tîh, the 'Arabah, and the basin of the Dead Sea are stony, sandy deserts swept by winds, bleak at times in winter, but burning in summer, scarcely diversified by an oasis, a great and ter rible wilderness," inhabited by a few thousand Arabs of the baser sort. Even this frightful (1) Grain, etc. Almost all vegetables and fruits waste has its attractions; the vivid contrasting of temperate climates are raised here. The white colors of the bare rocks, black and white, yellow mulberry is planted for the sake of its leaves, and red, green and gray. The awful chasms in which are used first as food for the silk worms, the mountain sides, still as death in summer, but and later in the season for cows and sheep. Of filled in winter with raging yeasty cataracts; the the cereals wheat, barley, rice, maize, sorghum, broad, gravelly plains, and the strange, naked and sesame are widely cultivated. Rye and oats mountains of porphyry, sandstone, and limestone, are not suited to the climate and are not sown. the cliffs and terraces, the wadies, rivers of water White beans, horse beans, string beans, peas, in winter, rivers of bowlders and gravel in sum- chick peas, lentils and lupine are raised every mer; the Dead Sea, hidden in its basin of weird where. Medick (medicago sativa) is sown as a mountains thirteen hundred feet below the sea, forage plant. Potatoes and colocasia are staples with its leaden waters overhung by a steamy mist, Cabbages, cauliflowers, artichokes, parsnips, carits shores fringed with the bleached skeletons of rots, celery, lettuce of two kinds, radishes, waterlong dead trees and shrubs, the streams pouring melons, cantelopes, pumpkins, squash, cucumbers, into it adding bitterness from the numerous ther-mukti (a species of cucumber), carobs, tomatoes, mal springs on the mountain sides, the Jordan eggplants, tobacco, and sugar cane reach an excelemptying its millions of tons of sweet water into lent development. an abyss which is ever becoming more salt and bitter. Then there is the Jordan, winding like a serpent for two hundred miles between its double fringe of willows, tamarisks, poplars, and olean-lars, peaches, plums, damsons, nectarines, apricots, ders, its canes and reeds, hemmed in on either side by mountain ranges riven by the tremendous power of the torrents which have torn their gorges thousands of feet through the solid rock to reach a river which for most of its course flows far below the ocean surface. Surely the Jordan has no fellow among rival rivers! Hermon, seen from the torrid plain at the head of the Dead Sea, far away between the mountain walls which inclose the Ghôr, its snowy summit towering above the clouds, is alone among mountains. Jerusalem, seen from the southern shoulder of the Mount of Olives, as Christ saw it when the people met him with palm branches and garments strewn in his pathway, and when children shouted hosanna-furnish valuable timber. Jerusalem with its domes and minarets, its tur- (4) Flowers. Of wild flowers the variety and retted and battlemented walls, its Moriah, its beauty are very great. Conspicuous are the crimson Zion, its Bezetha, its Acra, surrounded by olive and scarlet ranunculus, the crimson and scarlet and groves, with the valley of Jehoshaphat in the fore- blue anemone, the crimson poppy, stock, rocket, ground, Olivet on the right, the valley of the sons malcolmia, diplotaxis, isatis, chorispora, caper, of Hinnom on the left, is still the desire of all mignonette, rock rose, sun rose, violets, numerous nations. The valley of Jezreel, with its sea of carnations and campions, whitlow wort, tamarisk, waving green, Tabor and Little Hermon and Gil- I many St. John's worts, marshmallows, lavatera, (2) The Fruits are grapes, of many kinds; figs, pomegranates, oranges, lemons, citrons, mandarins, dates, apples, pears, medlars, Japanese med cherries, persimmons, jujubes, mulberries, strawberries, blackberries, edible pine, walnuts, olives, and bananas, which are cultivated here, and superior varieties are found in the markets. (3) Plants and Trees. Of medicinal plants castor oil, valerian, dill, fennel, anise, rue, mustard, scammony, nutgalls, and poppy are examples. Of textile plants flax, hemp, jute, and various reeds for making mats flourish. Of dyestuffs we have saffron, carthamus, madder, and cochineal. Of trees cedar, juniper, pine, maple, tamarisk, terebinth, spruce, sycamore, beech, eucalyp tus, oak, hornbeam, poplar, willow, pride of India, and the fruit trees before named, of which several |