sea, to the lower
level of the Jordan, 1300 feet below it. In the short distance of
twenty miles from the Mount of Olives to the Dead Sea there is a drop
of over 4000 feet. Within these limits flourish the pine and the palm,
the wheat and the cane, the grackle and the skylark, the mountain wolf
and the gazelle. The mountain may be covered with snow when the plain
is green with verdure. From more than one hilltop the traveler can see
at once the glaciers of Hermon and the steaming cauldron of the Dead
Sea.

These diversities explain many interesting points of history, and we
may understand them more clearly through some of the rare and
attractive photographs in THE BIBLE STORY.

The Seacoast Plain

Palestine may be most easily described as consisting of four strips
widening from north to south, and broken across by Mount Carmel and
the Valley of Esdraelon. These strips are, from west to east: the
lowland plain, the highlands, the Jordan valley, and the tablelands
east of the Jordan.

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The lowland plain has several significant features. The coast line of
Palestine, as you may see by the map (14 T.J.), is broken by only one
indentation, that of the headland of Carmel, and has not a single
harbor. The general character of its shores is admirably illustrated
by the picture (110 S.A.), and their exposure by the picture of
ancient Ascalon (474 T.J.). Jaffa, anciently Joppa, was then as now
the common landing place for imports, but the small boats (168 T.J.)
indicate how limited must have been the foreign commerce that could be
carried among the rocks which fringe that shore. The plain farther
inland was known at the north as the Plain of Sharon and at the south
as the Plain of the Philistines. As the map (112 T.J.) shows, the main
highroad from Asia Minor to Egypt ran through it. That Jerusalem was a
spiritual rather than a commercial capital is seen in the fact that it
was not on this road. Aijalon (364 H.T.) was one of those easy
gateways at which Judea struggled with Philistia, and the valley of
Sorek (180 T.J.), deeper among the hills, was the home of the
individualistic patriot, Samson.

The Highlands

When Abraham came down over the backbone of Canaan and stood on the
summit of Mount Ebal, which crowns the highlands, he chose for himself
the hill country of Judah and Hebron. There may have been a stern
prescience in this, as well as generosity to his luxury-loving nephew.
Thenceforth the history of th