The Plain of Philistia extends thirty or forty miles from the southern limits of Sharon to Gaza, varying in width from twelve to twenty-five miles.  It is well watered by several streams, some of which flow all the year.  Part of the water from the mountains flows under the ground and rises in shallow lakes near the coast.  Water can easily be found here, as also in Sharon, by digging wells, and the soil is suitable for the culture of small grains and for pasture.  During a part of the year the plain is beautifully ornamented with a rich growth of brightly colored flowers, a characteristic of Palestine in the wet season.

Gaza figures in the history of Samson, who “laid hold of the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and plucked them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is before Hebron.”  Ashkelon, on the coast, is connected with the history of the Crusades.  Ashdod, or Azotus, is where Philip was found after the baptism of the eunuch.  It is said that Psammetichus, an ancient Egyptian king, captured this place after a siege of twenty-seven years.  Ekron and Gath also belonged to this plain.

The ridge of mountains lying between the coast plain and the Jordan valley form the backbone of the country.  Here, more than elsewhere, the Israelites made their homes, on account of the hostility of the inhabitants in the lowlands.  This ridge is a continuation of the Lebanon range, and extends as far south as the desert.  In Upper Galilee the mountains reach an average height of two thousand eight hundred feet above sea level, but in Lower Galilee they are a thousand feet lower.  In Samaria and Judaea they reach an altitude of two or three thousand feet.  The foot-hills, called the Shefelah, and the Negeb, or “South Country,” complete the ridge.  The highest peak is Jebel Mukhmeel, in Northern Palestine, rising ten thousand two hundred feet above the sea.  Mt.  Tabor, in Galilee, is one thousand eight hundred and forty-three feet high, while Gerizim and Ebal, down in Samaria, are two thousand eight hundred and fifty feet and three thousand and seventy-five feet respectively.  The principal mountains in Judaea are Mt.  Zion, two thousand five hundred and fifty feet; Mt.  Moriah, about one hundred feet lower; Mount of Olives, two thousand six hundred and sixty-five feet, and Mt.  Hebron, three thousand and thirty feet.  Nazareth, Shechem, Jerusalem, and Hebron belong to the Mountain Region.

The Jordan Valley is the lowest portion of the earth’s surface.  No other depressions are more than three hundred feet below sea level, but the Jordan is six hundred and eighty-two feet lower than the ocean at the Sea of Galilee, and nearly thirteen hundred feet lower where it enters the Dead Sea.  This wonderful depression, which includes the Dead Sea, forty-five miles long, and the valley south of it, one hundred miles in length, is two hundred and fifty miles long