nd the man who operated it used the handle bar as he would the
cross bar of the trapeze. One would think that the position of the
rider was sufficiently dangerous to satisfy any public, but the
inventor of the trick sought to make it appear more wonderful by
having the rider carry between his teeth a little trapeze from the
crosspiece of which another man hung.

[Illustration: BICYCLIST RIDING FROM THE CEILING OF A CIRCUS.]

Different colored lights were thrown on the performers as they rode
around the ceiling, and at the end of the performance first one and
then the other dropped into the safety net which had been placed about
sixty feet below them. We are indebted to the Illustrirte Zeitung for
the cut and article.

* * * * *

REQUIREMENTS OF PALESTINE EXPLORER.

Lieut.-Col. Conder says that the requirements for exploration demand a
knowledge not only of Syrian antiquities, but of those of neighboring
nations. It is necessary to understand the scripts and languages in
use, and to study the original records as well as the art and
architecture of various ages and countries. Much of our information
is derived from Egyptian and Assyrian records of conquest, as well as
from the monuments of Palestine itself. As regards scripts, the
earliest alphabetical texts date only from about 900 B. C., but
previous to this period we have to deal with the cuneiform, the
Egyptian, the Hittite and the Cypriote characters.

The explorer must know the history of the cuneiform from 2700 B. C.
down to the Greek and Roman age, and the changes which occurred in the
forms of some 550 characters originally hieroglyphics, but finally
reduced to a rude alphabet by the Persians, and used not only in
Babylonia and Assyria, but also as early as 1500 B. C. in Asia Minor,
Syria, Armenia, Palestine and even by special scribes in Egypt. He
should also be able to read the various Egyptian scripts--the 400
hieroglyphics of the monuments, the hieratic, or running hand of the
papyri, and the later demotic.

The Hittite characters are quite distinct, and number at least 130
characters, used in Syria and Asia Minor from 1500 B. C. or earlier
down to about 700 B. C. The study of these characters is in its
infancy. The syllabary of Cyprus was a character derived from these
Hittite hieroglyphics, and used by the Greeks about 300 B. C. It
includes some fifty characters, and was probably the original system
whence the