20 NOVEMBER 1909, Page 38

Palestine Exploration Fund : Quarterly Statement. (38 Conduit Street. 2s.

6d.)—There are no researches of special importance to chronicle, but Sir Charles Warren's "Notes of New Discoveries" show how much progress has been made in our knowledge of Western Asia during the last few years. The Gezer tablet continues to be the subject of discussion. Mr. Stanley Cook in this number deals with the matter with reference to the date of the Hebrew alphabet found in it. The latest theory seems to be that it referred to taxes due to the Prince, the "mighty one" of Gezer. Two interesting series are continued by Messrs. Philip Baldenspeyer and W. E. Jennings-Bramley in "The Immovable East" and "The Bedouin of the Sinaitie Peninsula." "I have never met a Bedouin who could read or write," says the latter of these two contributors.