Page:An Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine.djvu/141

125 THE PLAINS OF ACRE AND MEGIDDO. 125

their base along the Plain of Acre and its connection with the Plain of Bameh ; the slope running from about four to seven miles in length. The descent on the other side of the range faces the south-east, and instead of being long and gradual, it is short and sharp a natural escarpment. The base of the hills on this side is in the great Plains of Buttauf and Merj Ibn Amir ; the former having been the territory of Zebulun, and familiar to Josephus as the Plain of Asochis ; the latter is the far more noted Plain of Megiddo, Jezreel, or Esdraelon, the chief battle-field of Palestine. These hills are part of the Northern Kange of Lower Galilee. See p. 199.

The Plain of Buttauf, together with the smaller Plain of Toran, which lies at a higher elevation about a mile distant on the south, occupies the north-eastern recess of the great basin of the Nahr el Mukutt'a or Eiver Kishon of the Bible. Both plains are drained by wadys which are connected with the Mukutt'a by the Wady el Melek, which last joins the main river in the Plain of Acre. The hills which separate the Plain of Buttauf and the Plain of the Mukutt'a, rise but little above the plains, especially where the plains approach together most nearly; and remembering that both of the plains are parts of the same basin, it seems best to take a connected view of them, and to treat the Wady el Khalladiyeh, which is the outlet of Buttauf, as joined rather than separated by the low saddle which lies between it and the wadys on the south, that run down to the Mukutt'a, on either side of Kh. Zebdah (alt. 350 feet). Indeed Mount Carmel and the range of Samaritan Hills which prolongs it in the same continuous line to the south-east beyond Jenin, should be considered as the boundary of one and the same system of lowlands, in which the Plain of Acre as well as Megiddo, with their offsets would all be included.

Thus the remarkable features of these plains would be observed to the best advantage. Looking then from the point where the eastern face of the hills of Western Galilee meets the base of Mount Carmel, the plain stretches out its great arms to the north, north-east, east, and south-east.