Page:Palestine Exploration Fund - Quarterly Statement for 1894.djvu/349

Rh Crusaders' site for Jericho, which does not appear, as far as I remember, to be mentioned by the earlier' travellers. Dr. Bliss remarks (p. 181) that the buildings here are of the same date with Kh. Mefjir. Much excavation has been done here since the date of the survey.



Annual Meeting of the General Committee was held at the Office of the Fund, 24, Hanover Square, on Tuesday, July 17th, 1894.

James Glaisher, Esq., F.R.S., occupied the Chair.

Among those present were Major-General Sir Charles W. Wilson, K.C.B., F.R.S., &c.; Basil Woodd Smith, Esq.; Rev. Vm. Rogers, D.D.; Professor Edward Hull, LL.D., F.R.S.; Rev. A. Löwy, LL.D.; Rev. Canon Dalton, C.M.G.; Admiral Sir Erasmus Ommanney; Guy le Strange, Esq.; J. Pollard, Esq.; Wm. Simpson, Esq. Rev. W. J. Stracey; &c.

Letters were received from Sir William Q. Ewart, Bart.; Sir William Muir; Major-General Sir F. J, Goldsmid; Colonel Goldsmid; Professor Flinders Petrie; Professor Greenwood; Mr. Walter Besant; Mr. H. H. Bolton; Mr. Geo. F. Watts; Rev. W. F. Birch; Mr. D. Macdonald; and several others, regretting their inability to attend.

The read the following Report of the Executive Committee:—

In resigning the office to which they were appointed at the last Annual Meeting of the Fund, your Executive Committee have the honour to render the following Report of their labours:—

Your Committee have held twenty meetings for the transaction of business, and there have been seven meetings of Sub-committees.

The Firman for excavating at Tell el Hesy having expired, a new Firman for excavating at Jerusalem was applied for, and has been granted by the Sublime Porte.

Mr. Bliss having been much strengthened in health by a stay of some months in England, returned in the autumn of last year to Palestine, and is now engaged in carrying on excavations outside the southern wall of Jerusalem with the view of ascertaining whether any remains of the ancient wall or gates of the city exist there.

He began work outside the English burial ground, at the point where Mr. Henry Maudslay, M. Inst. C.E., left off in the year 1875. It was then supposed that the great heap of rubbish lying there covered the foundations of a tower; to prove this, Mr. Bliss opened up a trench, and found the southern and eastern sides of the tower, formed of a scarped rock with several courses of drafted masonry resting on it. He will 