that the adjoining districts to the south of the Lebanon must have had a climate approaching that of the British Isles at the present day; and that, in a region of which many parts are over 2,000 feet in elevation, there must have been abundant rainfall. Even when the snows and glaciers of the Lebanon had disappeared, the effects of the colder climate which was passing away may be supposed to have remained for some time, and the vegetation to have been more luxuriant down to within the epoch of human habitation. The author's views generally coincide with those of Theobold Fisher, as extended by him to a much wider area (Studien über das Klima der Mediterranean Lander," Peterman's Mittheilungen, 1879).
10. The author considers that there are reasons for concluding that the outburst of volcanic phenomena in North-Eastern Palestine in the region of the Jaulan and Hauran, &c., has an indirect connection with the formation of the great Jordan Sea of the Pluvial period. The presence of water in considerable volume is now recognised as necessary to volcanic activity, and the author submits that this interdependence was brought about when the waters of the Lake stretched as far north as the little Lake of Hûleh. These waters, under a pressure of several hundred feet, would find their way into the interior of the earth's crust along the lines of the great Jordan Valley fault, and of its branches, and thus supply the necessary "steam power" for volcanic action. The period when the volcanoes of the Jaulan and Hauran were in action appears to have ranged from the Pliocene through the post-Pliocene to the beginning of the recent; when, concurrently with the falling away and partial drying up of the waters of the great inland sea, the volcanic fires became extinct and the outpourings of basaltic lava ceased to flow.
If these views are correct, it would seem that during the Glacial epoch, Palestine and Southern Syria presented an aspect very different from the present. The Lebanon throughout the year was snow-clad over its higher elevations, while glaciers descended into some of its valleys. The region of the Hauran, lying at its southern base, was the site of several extensive volcanoes, while the district around, and the Jordan Valley itself, was invaded by floods of lava. A great inland sea, occupying the Jordan Valley, together with the existing comparatively restricted sheets of water, extended from Lake Hûleh on the north, to a southern margin near the base of Samrat Fiddân in the Wâdy el Arabah of the present day, while numerous arms and bays stretched into the
