Page:An Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine.djvu/192

176 176 THE HIGHLANDS OF WESTERN PALESTINE.

considering only an intermediate portion of the mountain system that extends in three directions beyond those bounds. The Kasmiyeh on the north is indeed a curt divider, as the name implies, separating the white and lofty Lebanon from the humbler summits that are its continuation southward through Galilee, if not also through Samaria, Judea, and onwards.

So also the Jordan cuts off the western highlands by a well-defined line from the eastern portions of the same general mass. But still it is necessary in treating on a separated portion to bear in mind its proper adjuncts.

Before the present Survey, a considerable number of observations for altitude had been made by various travellers. These were carefully collected, arranged, and more or less critically examined by Lieutenant Van de Velde, in his "Memoir to accompany the. Map of the Holy Land."* Additions were afterwards made to the list, in a pamphlet by the same author, entitled " Notes on the Map of the Holy

Land."t

The map of the Palestine Exploration Fund includes a large number of hypsometrical observations, and this series has the great advantage of having been taken on a uniform system, and by trained observers throughout, an advantage that is fully displayed by a comparison of the discrepancies exhibited in Van de Velde's lists. It cannot, however, be justly con- cluded that the new series supplies all that is wanted by the hypsometrical student. The observations appear to have been made casually rather than systematically. It would have been possible with a due regard to the horizontal continuity of the vertical development of the ground, especially with reference to leading features, to have contributed much more to an intelligible apprehension of the main factors of the relief, without incurring the labour of contouring. These remarks are consequent upon an experience of the difficulties arising from the occasional want of observations for altitude,

f Published also at Gotha, 1865.
 * Published by J. Perthes, Gotha, 1858.