of the map show the watershed and physical features of the country, or give the divisions of the land and the Arabic names of places in use to-day.
There could be no better aid in studying the Scriptures than to have such maps by our side; for whether we read of the marching and counter-marching of armies; of the positions taken up before a battle; of the direction taken by the retreating foe; the sites selected for places of worship; the journeys of prophets of the Old Testament, or of Jesus and his disciples in the New, so much depends upon the relative positions of places, and their distances one from another, that we necessarily lose a part of the meaning, and miss a portion of the enjoyment unless we have a correct map by our side.
The best modern map of the Holy Land, previous to that prepared by the Palestine Exploration Fund, was the work of Van de Velde, a careful and scientific traveller and scholar. Van de Velde not only took observations himself, but laid down on his map all the observations made by previous travellers. Yet, when at the annual meeting of the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1886, a portion of Van de Velde's map was shown on an enlarged scale, side by side with the same portion of the Society's map, similarly enlarged, the contrast was striking. The first, with its hills roughly sketched in, its valleys laid down roughly, and its inhabited places, villages, or ruins, gave all that was known of this piece of country before the Survey. It was on such a map as this, the best at the time, because the most faithful, that the geographical student had to work. There was little use, from a geographical point of view, in consulting previous books of travel, because Van de Velde had gleaned from them all their geographical facts. Yet hardly any single place was laid down correctly; none of the hill shading was accurate; the course of the rivers and valleys was not to be depended upon;
