This was my birthplace and my relatives still live there. Since the time of Christ and his disciples, Antioch has been ten times destroyed by earthquakes. In the fourth century the whole city was destroyed, and 250,000 people were buried under the ruins. That beautiful street and its magnificent palaces are now buried two or three yards below the surface of the ground. In 1872, when I was there, an earthquake destroyed the whole city, and almost in a moment several thousand people perished. Several of my own relatives and many of my friends were killed. The city has now only 25,000 people, most of them Mohammedan Turks. There are many Fellahin, and perhaps 2,000 Greeks, and 500 Armenians, but in the suburbs the Armenians are more numerous, and are the intellectual heads of the whole. Antioch is still a beautiful and stately city, and a great center for licorice, raw silk, wheat, and soap. The finest soap is manufactured there. About thirty factories make it, from pure olive oil and daphne oil, the latter giving it a sweet fragrance. The daphne groves are very numerous. The city has excellent orchards and vineyards, orange trees, olive trees, fig trees, yeniduinya trees, palm trees, pomegranate trees. All sorts of fruits, in every season of the year, are fresh on the branches. But for occasional earthquakes, it would be a queen city yet; none could surpass its beauty or fruitfulness. GEORGE H. FILIAN. Translation of a letter (see opposite page) written in 1842 by the District Catholicos at city of Sis to Kevork Filian (father of the author) in Antioch: +------------+ | Red Seal | | of | | Catholicos.| +------------| +--------------+ | Symbol in | +--------------+ | colors | | Symbol in | | representing | | colors | | an Altar. | | representing | +--------------+ | the name | Michael Catholicos, The servant of Jesus Christ | Jesus Christ.| by the grace of our Lord, the supreme father of +--------------+ all Armenians who live in Great Seleucia. I the servant of St. Gregory's right hand and most Holy throne of the Holy Mother Church. Greetings of love and blessings upon my spiritual son Kevork Filian esteemed and honored and to all who belong to his family, perpetual happiness through Jesus Christ.