The interest of Antioch consists in certain memorable events having occurred there in the first ages of Christianity. It was situated where the chain of the Lebanon, running north, and the chain of Taurus, running east, meet, and was partly on an island. It was here that the Christians, when dispersed from Jerusalem at the death of Stephen, preached the Gospel. Here was the first Gentile Church founded; here the disciples of Christ were first called Christians; here St. Paul first settled as a minister of the Church and started on his first mission; here St. Paul rebuked St. Peter for conduct into which he had been betrayed through the influence of emissaries from Jerusalem. Jews were from the first settled in Antioch in large numbers. The city was founded in 300 B.C., and became prosperous. The citizens were noted for scurrilous wit, and for the nicknames they gave, and perhaps the name of Christian had its origin in this disposition of theirs. The modern place known as Antioch is a small and insignificant town of 6,000 inhabitants, though the ancient city was supposed to have had a population of 200,000. An earthquake destroyed most of the city in 526, and again in 583. The Saracens captured it in 635; the Crusaders stormed it in 1089; and it fell under the Moslem rule in 1286, since which time it has dwindled into insignificance. PALESTINE EXPLORATIONS. In modern times the geography of Palestine was chiefly known through the works of Dr. Robinson, Burckhart, and Vande Velde; but in 1864 a society sprang up in England for the purpose of a more systematic exploration. Successive expeditions were sent there for that purpose. In 1868 the Moabite Stone was discovered by the Rev. F. Klein. It is a block of basalt about 3-1/2 feet by 2 feet, and has on its face thirty-four lines of writing in the character known as Phoenician. If it had remained entire, there would have been no great difficulty in reading the inscription; but when the Arabs heard that the Europeans attached great value to its possession, they quarrelled about it and broke it up. About two-thirds of the fragments were afterwards collected and pieced together. And, fortunately, a "squeeze" of the whole had been taken before it was broken, and a translation has been arrived at. The restored monument was preserved in the Louvre at Paris, and a plaster cast is in the British Museum. The inscription is supposed to be a record by Media, King of Moab (nearly nine hundred years before Christ), of the victories and public works he had achieved. Besides the Moabite Stone, the explorers discovered numerous dolmens, being circular terraces 3 feet high, some of which were conjectured to be burial-places; also, dolmens being flat, table-like surfaces, probably used as altars by the Canaanite tribes. THE COURSE OF THE JORDAN TO THE DEAD SEA.