III. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. —The physical con formation of Palestine is simple, peculiar, and in some respects unique. It divides itself into four longitudinal belts, each reaching from north to south ; and these belts are as distinct in their poli tical history as in their physical structure. In fact, a careful study of the physical geography of Pa lestine—its plains, mountains, valleys, and great natural divisions—affords the best key to its his tory. The geographer who travels through the country, or the student who carefully notes one of the best constructed maps, such as Van de Velde's, must observe the belt of plain extending along the seabord from the mouth of the Litany to Gaza. Narrow on the north, and interrupted by three bold promontories, it expands gradually to wards the south into a broad champaign. Its low elevation and sandy soil make the coast-line tame and almost straight. Were it not for the head land of Carmel, the shore would be a straight line, without bay or promontory.
From the end of Lebanon on the north, a moun tain-range runs through the centre of the Its course is not parallel to the coast ; the lattet trends from N.N.E. to S. S. W.; whereas the moun tains run more nearly, though not quite, south, thus leaving a broader margin of plain at the southern extremity. The ridge is intersected near its centre by a crossbelt of plain, connecting the Jordan valley with the coast. This plain is Esdraelon. The sections of the ridge to the north and south of it have very different features. That on the north is picturesque, and in some places grand. The outlines are varied ; lofty peaks spring up at in tervals, and are separated by winding wooded glens. On the south, the general aspect of the ridge is dull and uniform, presenting the appear ance of a huge gray wall, as seen from the coast. But, in travelling down the road which runs along the broad back of the ridge to Jerusalem and He bron, the eye sees an endless succession of rounded hill-tops, thrown confusedly together, each bare and rocky as its neighbour. South of Hebron,
these sink into low swelling hills, similar in form, but smaller ; and these again gradually melt into the desert plain of et-Tih.
But by far the most remarkable feature of Pales tine is the Jordan valley, which runs through the land from north to south, straight as an arrow. There is nothing like it in the world. It is a rent or chasm in the earth's crust, being everywhere below the level of the ocean. This deep valley produces a marked effect on the ridges which border it. Their sides toward the valley are far more abrupt than elsewhere in Palestine ; the ra vines that descend from them are deeper and wilder ; and towards the south, along the shores of the Dead Sea, there is a look of rugged grandeur and desolation such as is seldom met with. The valley is of nearly uniform breadth, about ten miles from brow to brow, expanding slightly at Tiberias and the Dead Sea, as if greater depth had made some enlargement of the lateral boundaries necessary. This valley forms a very striking feature on every map of Palestine ; and it becomes all the more striking the more accurately the physical geography of the land is delineated.
The remaining part of Palestine east of the Jor dan forms a belt of table-land, to which the central valley gives some remarkable features. Every tra veller in Palestine is familiar with the mountain range—steep, straight, and of nearly uniform eleva tion—which, from every point in Judaea, Samaria, and Galilee, bounds the view eastward. This, in reality, is not a mountain-range ; it is the side or bank of the eastern plateau, which has itself an elevation of from z000 to 300o feet, to which the depression of the Jordan adds another thousand. At only a few places, on the extreme north, and near the centre, do the tops of this ridge rise above the general level of the plateau. The ravines that descend from it are of great depth. At the north east angle of Palestine is an isolated mountain ridge, dividing the fertile table-land of Bashau from the arid wastes of Arabia.