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PALESTINE.
183

done for the right understanding of the Old and New Testaments since the translation of the Scriptures into the vulgar tongue.


[Authorities and Sources (Western Palestine):—"Survey Memoirs of Palestine Exploration Fund." "Tent Work in Palestine." By Major Conder. "Palestine in its Physical Aspects." Rev. Canon Tristram. "Sinai and Palestine." By Dean Stanley. "Twenty-One Years' Work in the Holy Land." Published by the P. E. Fund. "Memoir on the Geology." Dr Ed. Hull. "Mount Seir." Dr Ed. Hull. "Introduction to the Survey." Trelawney Saunders. "Quarterly Statements of P. E. Fund." Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible." "Rob Roy on the Jordan." John Macgregor.]

11. The East of Jordan.

It would be well if the topographical survey could be extended so as to cover all the ground occupied by the tribes of Reuben and Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh. It is true indeed that the East of Jordan is less intimately bound up with the Scripture narrative than the West, yet still there are ninety-six places east of Jordan mentioned in the Bible—Dr Selah Merrill estimates that there are two hundred and forty—and it would be an advantage to have them all identified. On the east side, also, the country is much more thickly strewn with ruins than on the west; and although the so-called "giant cities" of Bashan may not deserve that name, yet is the region full of Roman towns, of Nabathean and Arab texts scrawled on the rocks, of Greek temples and Greek inscriptions, and of dolmen groups yet older.

In the absence of detailed trigonometrical survey of the whole region, the map published by the Palestine Explora-