One more event of 1879 must not be forgotten. The Park of Palestine had fallen into decrepitude. Some of its mountains had sunk down, and the course of the River Jordan had become clogged up, so there was danger of a lake at a spot where none was on the map, and of a dry bed below, long after the Israelites had finished their crossing. Moreover, some mischievous boys had mixed up its geography by moving a few of the cities. Bethel was found where Kirjath-jearim should be; Joppa had been swept by the ice in the breaking up of winter into the Mediterranean Sea, and Megiddo was missing. The task of reconstructing the Park was given to Dr. W. H. Perrine of Michigan, a scholar and an artist, who had traveled in the Holy Land, had painted a panorama of it, and had constructed a model in plaster. He rebuilt the Park from more permanent materials, and succeeded in making it more accurate in some details, as well as more presentable in appearance. But man-made mountains are by no means "the ever-lasting hills," and the Park of Palestine needs to be made over at least once in ten years if it is to be kept worthy of Chautauqua. CHAPTER XI HOTELS, HEADQUARTERS, AND HAND-SHAKING (1880) THE seventh session of the Assembly opened in 1880 with another addition to the Chautauqua territory. Fifty acres along the Lake shore had been acquired, and the Assembly-ground was now three times as large as that of the old Fair Point Camp Meeting. This season saw also the foundation laid for a large hotel. It is worthy of record that the Hotel Athenæum was built not by the Assembly Board, but by a stock company of people friendly to the movement and willing to risk considerable capital in its establishment. More than one promising Assembly had already been wrecked and many more were destined to bankruptcy by building large hotels before they were assured of guests to fill them. It must be kept in mind that everywhere the Chautauqua constituency was not, and is not now, the wealthy class who frequent summer hotels and are willing to pay high prices for their entertainment. A Chautauqua Assembly, whether in the east or the west, is mainly composed of people possessing only moderate means, but eager for intellectual culture. Whenever a Chautauqua has been established in connection with the conventional summer hotel, either it has become bankrupt from lack of patronage, or the hotel has swallowed up the Assembly. The Hotel Athenæum at Chautauqua was not the property of the Assembly, and might have failed--as many, perhaps most, of the summer hotels at watering-places have failed once or more than once in their history--without endangering the Assembly itself. The men who built the Athenæum, led by Lewis Miller and his business partners, risked their money, and might have lost it, for there were seasons when it paid no dividends to the stockholders, and other seasons when the profits were small. Yet this hotel drew by degrees an increasing number of visitors