At the request of the Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund I have undertaken to prepare Herr Schumacher's present Memoir for the press, and effect such alterations in the English as were needful to make his descriptions comprehensible. The present Map and Memoir deal with a most Important tract of country—namely, the ancient Decapolis of Peræa—and besides very numerous sites, still showing ancient remains, the Greek or Roman names of which have been utterly lost, plans and drawings have now been made of the important ruins of Gadara (Umm Keis), Capitolias (Beit Râs), and Arbela (Irbid), none of which had ever before been surveyed. Herr Schumacher also met with two new fields of Dolmens, both covering a considerable extent of ground, and consisting of many hundreds of these monuments. The greater number of specimens, in one of the fields, lay still undisturbed, and the examination of their contents proved that in some instances at least Dolmens in Palestine were used as places of sepulture.

It is to be regretted that no inscriptions were found among the ruins examined during the present survey; the explanation is probably to be sought in the friable nature of the material (crumbling lime-stone) of which the buildings in northern ʾAjlûn are constructed, and the weathered condition of most of the stones.