Palestine: the physical geography and natural history of the Holy Land / By John Kitto. Illustrated with one hundred and seventy-one woodcuts, by the most eminent artists.

  • John Kitto
Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Palestine: the physical geography and natural history of the Holy Land / By John Kitto. Illustrated with one hundred and seventy-one woodcuts, by the most eminent artists. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/456 page 7
    illustrations have been sought in countries too remote, and too different in climate and situation, to offer satisfactory results. It is indeed surprising, to those who carefully consider this and other works of the same description, how few of the species enumerated and described have been ascertained to exist in Palestine. A Natural History of the Bible forms a considerable portion of a larger work by the Rev. Professor Paxton, first published, in 1819, in two octavo volumes, and enlarged to three in the second edition of 1825. It is entitled ‘ Illustrations of Scripture,’ and, in the main, is a useful and able digest, under distinct heads, of information previously collected by others. This work has no original merit beyond that of arrangement and analysis: for, although the author’s reading enabled him to adduce some new facts in illustration of ‘ Manners and Cus- toms,’ the ‘Geography’ is almost wholly from Bochart’s ‘ Phaleg;’ and in the ‘Natural History’ the zoological articles are chiefly drawn from the same author’s ‘Hierozoicon,’ and the botanical] from Calmet’s Dictionary and Taylor’s ‘ Expository Index.’ This part of the work, indeed, only professes to notice the subjects of natural history which are prominently mentioned in the Holy Scriptures. But the praise of producing the very best work which the English language possesses on the general subject is due to an American, Dr. Thaddeus Mason Harris, whose very able little work, the ‘ Natural History of the Bible,’ has become no less popular in this country than in the United States. The great merit of this book is the clear and satisfactory manner in which it condenses the large masses of facts and reasonings which had gradually accumu- lated on the various subjects on which it treats, and in the judgment with which conflicting alternatives are balanced, and a position chosen. Yet this excellent judgment being frequently exercised upon imperfect and unsatisfactory materials, the result of the most careful deter- mination is very often inconclusive. The judicious author, having the results of all previous _ Inquiry before him, could not fail to make a better book than any of his predecessors. He has condensed their merits, but has not entirely escaped their defects,—which we have already described as arising from a want of sufficient inquiry into the actual zoology and botany of Palestine. It is so far from true that “he has exhausted all the learning of naturalists and travellers,”’* that in. his list of authorities (fifty-one works by forty-two authors) the names of only three actual travellers in Palestine occur; these being, Rauwolff, Hasselquist, and Shaw. “The learning of naturalists and travellers” is a very remarkable expression; and it is most true that the authors of Natural Histories of the Bible have, more than any others, habitually forgotten that natural history is eminently a practical science—a science of observation ; although, in the natural history of such a country as Palestine, philological learning may doubtless be of much service, in guiding some of the naturalist’s researches, and in assisting some of his conclusions. Having thus characterised the labours of the principal writers on the Natural History of the Bible, it remains to inquire what has been done to illustrate the actual natural history of Palestine. We have already stated that almost nothing has been formally effected in this matter; and hence the question is rather, what materials for such a history lie dispersed and uncollected in the mass of European literature ?—and this may be still further narrowed to the question, what travellers afford the most ample notices of the produce of the country ? The greater number of the older travellers in Palestine were led thither principally or solely by religious motives—being in fact monks and pilgrims, who diligently sought out, and amply described, every spot which was accounted sacred, and who had eyes and hearts for nothing else; and, by minute accounts of that which they had witnessed of this description, to edify and instruct those pious persons who were unable to make similar pilgrimages, was deemed by them the highest honour to which they could aspire, and the most useful service which they could render to their country. Such accounts are far more numerous than is usually imagined, and have for centuries quite exhausted a subject on which, nevertheless, a new book still appears almost every year. Before the happy idea was discovered, that books of travel containing pre- 4 * North American Review,’ vol. x. p. 92.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3