scribe the position of a place by saying it was two hours east from the last, and then one and a quarter hours north-west; but we now have exact distances. We have a map which helps us to understand Bible narratives of personal journeys or the march of armies. We can now see which route must have been followed; we can pursue step by step the Scripture events. We are certain now that the Bible could not have been written in any other country under heaven.
Before the Survey the Sea of Galilee was variously computed as being from 300 feet to 600 feet below the Mediterranean: it is now fixed at 682. The courses of the affluents of the Jordan are found to be entirely different from those previously shown. Only four fords of the Jordan were known and marked on the maps, whereas we now have more than forty. Villages have had to be transferred from one side to the other of the great boundary valleys. Scores and scores of Scripture sites, wrongly placed or altogether lost, have been found and fixed. And the finding of the sites has enabled the surveyors to trace accurately the boundaries of tribes and provinces. How was it possible to understand the Bible history unless we knew the situation of towns, the boundaries of tribes, the fords and passes and valleys which were open to foreign invaders? How could we understand it unless we knew the routes of wayfarers and the way of commerce? These things have now at last been ascertained, and with accuracy. When the base line which was measured on the Jaffa plain was checked by a line measured on the plain of Esdraelon, it was found to be perfectly satisfactory; and the closing line when calculated in 1876 at Southampton had a margin of only 20 feet, which is an invisible distance on the one inch scale. It may be claimed for the Survey that the new discoveries are almost as numerous as all those of former travellers put together; and nothing so great has been
