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During the last eighteen years our knowledge of Asia Minor has advanced by leaps and bounds, but all parts of the country have not shared alike in the general progress. Galatia in particular—we are now speaking of the country on this side of the Halys—has received comparatively little attention from archaeological travellers. Humann and Domaszewski's journey in 1882 and some journeys made by Prof. Ramsay in the following year and by Dr. Körte in 1894 (in the vicinity of the Sangarios) constitute the whole contribution that has been made to the exploration of this region since the publication of M. Perrot's Exploration de la Galatie (1862). A good deal has been done in the meantime by geographers to improve the modern map of the northern frontiers, notably by W. von Diest, whose work is always as nearly a picture of the country as can be attained without a regular survey. That he may be able to continue it is the fervent wish of all who are interested in Asia Minor. But there are few points fixed with any certainty on the ancient map, and there are large districts which are either hardly known (like the country near the great Salt Lake) or have never been visited at all.

About forty-five miles in an air-line west-south-west of Samsun (Amisos) lies the town of Vezir Keupru, situated at the eastern edge of a rolling plain bounded towards the west by the Halys, on the south by the long ridge of Tavshan Dagh, and on the north by the mountain-rim of the plateau through which the Halys forces its way to the sea. This undulating tract is the extreme westerly part of the ancient Phazemonitis, over which passed the one great ‘through route’ from Constantinople across Paphlagonia to the Euphrates, following throughout its course a line curiously parallel to the coast. Though this road is not described in any ancient document, its importance for the Roman period is amply proved by a remarkably complete series of milestones, erected or re-erected by successive emperors between Nerva and Constantine, which we discovered last summer between the Halys and Neocaesareia. In modern times it cannot claim any such importance.

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