CHAPTER XXI.
SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC RESULTS.
I propose to give here a summary of the scientific results of the Expedition; reserving for a future work, which will be devoted to this subject fuller details on the several heads here referred to, and which I hope will be completed in the course of the year 1885. I do not wish it to be supposed that the work done by the members of our Expedition was always new, and altogether original. Several men of science of great eminence—amongst whom the names of Russeger, Fraas, Lartet, Vignes, together with those of investigators connected with the Palestine and Sinaitic Surveys, will always hold a prominent place—had previously entered this field. The members of the Expedition have had the advantage of their labours, and it would have been culpable on their part either to neglect or ignore them. On the contrary, we have endeavoured, I trust with proper acknowledgment, to utilise the observations of our predecessors in this wide field of research, which is every day receiving fresh accessions of explorers.[1] The results, then, are as follows:—
1. A complete triangulation of the district lying between the mountains of Sinai and the Wâdy el Arabah, together with that of the Wâdy el Arabah itself, bounded on the west by the tableland of the Tîh, and on the east by the mountains of Edom and Moab. This was entirely the work of Major Kitchener, and his assistant, Mr. G. Armstrong (formerly Sergeant-Major R.E.). An outline survey along the line of route was also made, and has been laid down in MS. on a map prepared by Mr. Armstrong on the same scale as the reduced Map of Palestine, viz., ⅜ inch to one statute mile, or 1168960.
2. Some important rectifications of the borders of the Salt Sea, and of the Gulf of Akabah, were also made.
- ↑ Amongst the most recent contributions to the natural history of this part of the globe may be mentioned Tristram's "Fauna and Flora of Palestine," and C. and W. Barbey's "Herborisations au Levant, Egypt, Syrie, et Mediterranée" (Lausanne).
