In the northern part of the village is the ruin of a Crusaders’ Church, one of the better preserved specimens of that kind of building in Palestine. A considerable part of the east end, with its triple apse and most of the north wall, though this latter bulges ominously, are still standing. The south wall, too, is pretty well preserved. A low passage through it leads to the site where the old convent used to be, now the home of a Moslem boys’ school taught by a white turbaned urbane khaṭîb. Several visitors of late years searched in vain for an inscription that M. Clermont Ganneau mentions as having seen. Among the ruins of the church several masons’ marks of the crusading style may be seen on the building stone. The church is some eight centuries old. The cement in these old structures is exceedingly strong. Though the north wall seems in such imminent danger of falling, the earthquake of 1903 did not accomplish its overthrow. Cows and donkeys wander about the weedy interior, and the neighbors spread out there heaps of gathered dung to dry for fuel. There are many signs of squalor in el-Bîreh. The level of the floor in many of the huts is below the threshold. In fact, a large number of the houses, excluding those of the shaykhs and the Christian tribe of Rafîdya, are of the very old style of sḳîfeh dwellings, a few of which were mentioned in describing Râm Allâh, the style of buildings made with stones bedded in earth, or at best held together by poor mortar and having dirt roofs supported upon heavy boughs. The village, though possessed of wide lands, a good situation on the traffic route of the country and the best spring for many miles around, compares very poorly with Râm Allâh, just twenty minutes away and possessed of none of these advantages. The very marked superiority of the Christian village and its rapid development in the last century is a matter of significant observation. A study of the house structure already suggested in the two villages shows the typical development of village building. There are in Râm Allâh some of the sḳîfeh-huts of the same style and age apparently as the larger number of that kind proportionately in el-Bîreh. Others of this same order were pulled down long ago in Râm Allâh and replaced by houses made with dressed stone and mortar and having rolled dirt roofs, similar to some of the better grade of houses in el-Bîreh to-day. But this kind is already counted inferior in Râm Allâh, where the larger number of dwellings have the heavy, arched, dome roofs of stone, of which there are but few in el-Bîreh. An improvement even upon these is gaining ground in Râm Allâh, and much better houses, having several rooms, modern window openings and paved floors and provided in some cases with cisterns for oil or water, are being constructed by the wealthier villagers. The development of several centuries in highland peasant homes may thus be traced. A significant change in the interior