[Quarterly Statement, July, 1894.]
THE
PALESTINE EXPLORATION FUND.
NOTES AND NEWS.
A Meeting of the Fund was held on the afternoon of May the 8th, in the Westminster Town Hall, when Major Claude E. Conder, R.E., read a paper on "Future Researches in Palestine."
The Duke of York presided, and among others present were Mr. James Glaisher, F.R.S. (Chairman of Committee), Archdeacon Farrar, Lord Amherst of Hackney, the Dean of Westminster, the Marquis of Bute, Sir Edmund Lechmere, Sir Charles Wilson, Canon Tristram, the Rev. Dr. William Wright, Dr. Chaplin, of Jerusalem, Mr. Walter Besant, the American Ambassador, Mr. F. D. Mocatta, Mr. H. A. Harper, Mr. Gibbs, Colonel Watson, Mr. Walter Morrison, and Mr. J. D. Crace.
In opening the proceedings, His Royal Highness said:—Your Excellency, my Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen, it will be scarcely necessary for me to trouble you with any lengthy remarks concerning the object of our meeting here this afternoon. The Palestine Exploration Fund has now been in existence for nearly 30 years. The great and useful work achieved by its means in the past, more especially the topographical survey by Officers of the Royal Engineers of the whole of Palestine, on the scale of one inch to a mile, and the careful gathering together of a mass of information regarding the Holy Land cannot but be very well known to you all. (Applause.) Its past successes have been very great, and we hope and believe that these are only the foundations of even greater achievements to come. The work that lies before us in the immediate future, as you will hear directly, is nothing less than the systematic excavation, so far as may be possible, of the chief historic sites of Syria. What has been done, and is still being done in Chaldea, in Egypt, in Greece, and in classic Rome, yet awaits doing in Palestine. An important beginning has been made, and we must actively and strenuously go on with it. The interesting and extremely important discoveries that have been made at Lachish last year and the year before by the skill and perseverance of Mr. Bliss (applause), acting on behalf of the Fund, are full of promise as to what awaits our efforts in the future, and I am sure that it is a real pleasure to everyone of us to feel that English and Americans are, in this matter, working hand in hand together. (Hear, hear.) It is also a great satisfaction to know that His Majesty the Sultan, without whose sanction it would, of course, be impossible to undertake this work, has evinced a very lively interest in these
