Page:An Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine.djvu/64

48 48 THE MEDITERRANEAN WATERSHED.

Beit Iksa. The Wady Buwai from Beit Surik, joins the Wady Beit Hannina where it bends round on a southerly course to the village of Kulonieh.

Having some time since paid close attention to the cartography of this interesting plateau, in constructing the map of the environs of Jerusalem in Dr. Wm. Smith's Ancient Atlas, the present writer may be allowed to express the gratitude of a geographer for the light which the Palestine Exploration Survey now throws upon the subject. This part of Palestine had perhaps been more closely and generally studied than any other, thanks especially to the late Dr. Barclay of the American Mission. And yet if the Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund needed a proof of the necessity for its exertions, it would be supplied by a com- parison of their survey with the aforesaid map of the Environs of Jerusalem.

Below Kulonieh, the central Wady of the Nahr Eubin basin, runs as Wady es Surar southward and westward, in a deep and winding valley to Setuf, Kh. el Loz, and 'Akur, receiving on its right bank between Loz and 'Akur, the Wady esh Shemarin from KustuL and Soba ; and on its left bank opposite 'Akur, the Wady es Sikkeh, the recipient of the noted Wady el Werd, and Wady Bittir, which drain the eastern and part of the southern margin of the Eubin basin from Lifta and Jerusalem, to Bethlehem, el Khudr, and Kefr Som. West of Kefr Som, another wady descends to the left bank of Wady Surar now called Ismain, at Deir esh Sheik (alt. 1,595 feet). The Wady Ismain continues westward at the foot of Deir el Hawa (alt. 2,090 feet) to 'Artuf (alt. 910 feet), where it receives the Wady en Najil direct from the southern edge of the basin, near Beit Nettif. This northward course of the Najil will be mentioned hereafter in connection with other features, which serve to define the base of the mountains, and separate them from the lowland hills of the Shephelah. A tributary of the Najil skirts the southern edge from the south of Kefr Som ; and a parallel tributary on the north joins the Najil from the same direction, passing