altar could have been obtained from some rock-hewn tanks in the immediate vicinity, while the path that passes the pile leads straight down to the hill on the bank of the Kishon, where tradition has it that the priests were massacred. Moreover, it was in the centre of the most populous part of the mountain. Within a radius of two miles and a half from this pile of stones there are no fewer than twelve ruins of ancient towns and villages on the various hill-tops and mountain-spurs which surround it. No fact could give a better idea than this of the populous character of Carmel in the days of the prophet. Not very far from this I discovered, half-way down the steep flank of the mountain, a fortress of a most ancient race, the stones which were piled one above another three high to form the rampart being immense natural unhewn boulders weighing from two to three tons each. I am not aware of anything of the kind having yet been found in Palestine, and as carrying one back to a period probably anterior to Jewish occupation, I regard it as the most interesting discovery I have made on Carmel. A PLACE FAMOUS IN HISTORY. St. Jean d'Acre, Oct. 14.—Of all the towns on the Syrian coast, from Antioch to Gaza, none has had a more eventful history than Acre, or one which more directly affected the fortunes of the rest of the country at large. Napoleon I. called it the key of Palestine, and it is doubtless owing to its important strategical position that it has undergone so many vicissitudes, and been the scene of so many sanguinary battles. There is, indeed, probably no similar area on the face of the globe on which so much blood has been shed. I was at some trouble the other day to add up the list of sieges it has undergone, and the total was fifteen, not counting doubtful ones in the earliest history of the country, when it was invaded and conquered by the ancient Egyptians; but beginning with the siege of Acre by Shalmaneser, 721 B.C., when the fortress belonged to the Tyrians, and ending with its bombardment, in A.D. 1840, by the English Admiral Sir Charles Napier, the list is one which suggests a record of blood unparalleled in history. Its worst time was undoubtedly during the two hundred years when it was taken and retaken several times by Crusaders and Saracens successively. On one of these occasions when, after a two years' siege, the town fell into the hands of the Saracens, sixty thousand Christians are said to have fallen by the sword. The place is still shown, at the northeast salient of the outer wall, where stood the English tower, which was guarded by the troops of Richard Cœur de Lion.