Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/189

 PALESTINE 171 than an historical frontier (Josh. xiii. 11). Palestine thus lies between 31 and 33 20 N. lat.; its south-west point is situated about 34 20 E. long., some distance south of Gaza (Ghazza),its north-west point about 35 15 E. long., at the mouth of the Litany (Kasimiye). As the country west of the Jordan stretches east as far as 35 35 it has a breadth in the north of about 23 miles and in the south of about 80 miles. Its length may be put down as 150 miles ; and, according to the English engineers, whose survey included Beersheba, it has an area of 6040 square miles. For the country east of the Jordan no such precise figures are available. The direct distance from Hermon to Arnon is about 120 miles, and the area at the most may be estimated at 3800. square miles. The whole territory of Palestine is thus of very small extent, equal, in fact, to not more than a sixth of England. The classical writers ridicule its insignificant size. General Geography. Palestine, as thus defined, consists of very dissimilar districts, and borders on regions of the most diverse character. To the south lies a mountainous desert, to the east the elevated plateau of the Syrian steppe, to the north Lebanon and Anti-Libanus, and to the west the Mediterranean. In the general configuration of the country the most striking feature is that it does not rise uninterruptedly from tiie sea-coast to the eastern plateau, but is divided into two unequal portions by the deep Jordan valley, which ends in an inland lake (see JORDAN). Nor does the Jordan, like the Nile in Egypt, simply now through the heart of the country and form its main artery ; it is the line of separation between regions that may almost be considered as quite distinct, and that too (as will afterwards appear) in their ethnographic and political aspects. This is especially the case in the southern sections of the country; for even at the Lake of Tiberias the Jordan valley begins to cut so deep that crossing it from either direction involves a considerable ascent. The country west of Jordan is thus a hilly and moun tainous region which, forming as it were a southward con tinuation of Lebanon, slopes unsymmetrically east and west, and stretches south, partly as a plateau, beyond the limits of Palestine. The mountain range consists of a great number of individual ridges and summits, from which valleys, often rapidly growing deeper, run east and west. Towards the Mediterranean the slope is very gradual, especi ally in the more southern parts, where the plain along the coast is also at its broadest. About three-fourths of the cis-Jordan country lies to the west of the watershed. Towards the Dead Sea, on the other hand, the mountains end in steep cliffs ; and, as the Jordan valley deepens, the country draining towards it sinks more abruptly, and becomes more and more inhospitable. The plateaus back from the coast-cliffs of the Dead Sea have been desert from ancient times, and towards the east they form gullies of appalling depth. On the other side of the Jordan the mountains have quite a different character, rising from the river gorge almost everywhere as a steep wall (steepest towards the south) which forms the edge of the great upland stretching east to the Euphrates. Geology. The mountains both east and west of the Jordan consist in the main of Cretaceous limestone ; num- mulitic limestone appears but rarely, as on Carmel, Ebal, and Gerizim. Towards the Dead Sea the rock is traversed by hornblende and flint. Formations of recent origin, such as dunes of sea-sand and the alluvium of rivers and lakes, cover the western margin of Palestine (i.e., the whole of Philistia and the plain of Sharon) and the entire valley of the Jordan. Plutonic or volcanic rocks occur occasionally in the country east of Jordan ; less frequently in the country to the west, as, for example, in the mountains round the plain of Jezreel. Physical Divisions. The mountain system west of Jordan must be broken up into a number of separate, groups, which, it may be remarked, are of political as well as physical significance. A first group, consisting of the country north of the plain of Jezreel, may be subdivided into a large northern portion with summits reaching a height of 4000 feet, and a smaller southern portion not exceeding 2000 feet. The former, the Upper Galilee of antiquity, is a mountainous region with a somewhat intricate system of valleys, stretching from the Kasimiye in the north to a line drawn from Acre ( Akka) towards the Lake of Tiberias. Of the valleys (more than thirty in number) which trend westwards to the Mediterranean, the Wadi Hubeishiye, Wadi Ezziye, and Wadi el-Kurn deserve to be mentioned. Not far west of the watershed is a plateau-like upland draining northwards to the Kasimiye. The slope to the Jordan is steep. Jebel Jermak, a forest-clad eminence 3934 feet above the sea, is the highest massif. The whole territory is fruitful, and forms decidedly one of the most beautiful as well as b^st-wooded districts of Palestine. The plain along the Mediterranean is on the average hardly a mile broad ; between cliff and sea there is at times barely room for a narrow road, and at some places indeed a passage has had to be cut out in the rock. South of Has en-Nakiira, on the other hand, this plain widens con siderably ; as far as Acre the portion named after this town is about 4 miles broad. The mountain structure of the second subsection, or Lower Galilee, is of a different character, low chains run ning east and west in well-marked lines, and enclosing a number of elevated plains. Of these plains the most im portant is that of Buttauf (plain of Zebulun or Asochis), an extremely fertile (in its eastern parts marshy) depression 9 miles long and 2 broad, lying 400 to 500 feet above the sea, between hills 1 700 feet high. To the south-west, about 700 feet above the sea, is the smaller but equally fertile plain of Tor an, 5 miles long and 1 mile broad. Among the mountains the most conspicuous landmarks are Nebi Sa in (1602) near Nazareth, Jebel es-Sih (1838), and especially, to the east of this last, Jebel et-Tur or Tabor (1843), an isolated wooded cone which rises on all sides withi consider able regularity, and commands the plain of Esdraelon. Eastwards the country sinks by a succession of steps : of these the lava-strewn plateau of Sahel el-Ahma, which lies above the cliffs that look down on the Lake of Tiberias, but is 300 feet below the level of the Mediterranean, deserves mention. The principal valleys of the whole region are (1), towards the west, the great basin of Nahr Na man (Belus of the ancients), whose main branch is Wadi Khalzun, known in its upper course as Wadi Sha ib or Wadi Khashab, and, farther south, the basin of the Wadi Melek (Wadi Rummani), which flows into the Nahr el- Mukatta (Kishon); and (2) towards the east the rapid- flowing Wadi Rubudiye, Wadi el-Hamam, and Wadi Fejjas. A certain connexion exists between the plains already mentioned (those of Buttauf, Acre, &c.) and the great plain which, with an average height of 250 feet above the sea, stretches south from the mountains of Galilee and separates them from the spurs of the mountains of Samaria (the central portion of the cis-Jordan country). This great plain, which in ancient times was known as the plain of Megiddo, and also as the valley of Jezreel or plain of Esdraelon, and which now bears the name of Merj Ibn Amir (pasture land of the son of Amir), is one of the main features of the whole cis-Jordan region (Josephus called it the Great Plain par excellence), and presents the only easy passage from the coast districts to the Jordan valley and the country beyond. The larger portion lies west of the watershed, which at El- Afule is 260 feet above