1886 — Crown octavo. Pp. xvi, 342, 2 catalogue. Folding, partly coloured engraved map of Western Hauran & Eastern Jaulan, by Schumacher, as frontispiece. Plus 5 other folding engraved maps, some coloured, tipped-in. With a total of 157 engraved illustrations, some full page, throughout the text. Index in English and Arabic, footnotes. Hardcover, bound in the original publisher's full mustard-colour cloth, gilt-embossed illustration on upper cover, lettering embossed in black, spine lettered in black, spine ends slightly bumped. Foliage green chalked endpapers; top edge roughly trimmed. In about fine condition (contemporary institutional label pasted inside cover with small blemish to front endpaper, stamp on blank endpaper, old signature). Overall an excellent copy. ~ First edition. Schumacher was the first explorer to survey the region lying between Damascus and Haifa. His minute and thorough scientific observations, notes, maps, drawings, and sketches were prepared for publication at the request of the Palestine Exploration Fund by his friend, the explorer Guy le Strange. They were published here for the first time. The papers of le Strange and Laurence Oliphant, "A Ride Through Ajlun and the Belka During the Autumn of 1884," and "A Trip to the North-East of Lake Tiberias, in Jaulan," respectively, were published before but appear here for the first time in a book form. Gottlieb Schumacher (1857) settled at a very young age with his family in Haifa, where his father, a member of the "Temple Association" designed most of the buildings of the German Colony. Following the completion of his engineering studies in Stuttgart, he returned to Haifa and was appointed Chief Engineer for the Province of Akko. He designed many buildings and was a leading figure in civil engineering. One of his most important projects was the survey of the Golan, Hauran, and the Ajlun districts in preparation for the construction of the Damascus-Haifa railway. In the course of this survey he produced the first accurate maps of these regions, along with detailed descriptions of the archaeological remains and the present villages. He published many other reports and books on his discoveries, supported by the Palestine Exploration Fund. With the outbreak of World War I the Templar community left for Germany. Schumacher returned in 1924 to his home on the Carmel, where he died a year later. Although he was born in Ohio, U.S.A., Gottlieb was brought-up and educated as a German. "I beg to throw myself on the indulgence of my readers for the defects of style," he once wrote, "for my work has been perforce written in a language which, though familiar to me, is not my own." [Descriptive text Copyright Librarium, The Hague]
