his death. This report being influential in developing and managing water resources for agriculture and locating settlements. Later life Blake retired in 1939 to be with his wife Amy (née Marsden) and children Geoffrey, Paul, Barbara (King), Audrey (Rowland) and Joan (Kennard) in England. A year later he returned to Palestine in consultancy work exploring for petroleum and had been content with oil signs in the graben on the western border and evidence of domal structures. He advised his family of a practice exploring without weapons or guards. Given the differing goals of the British Mandate, Zionist and Palestinian Arab populations this was not the case certainly in later years. Perhaps from 1936 when stability in Palestine deteriorated, which resulted in increasing tension between countrymen and colonies the use of military police to protect surveys commenced. Certainly from August 1938 as an important contributory topographical or ordnance survey of perennial streams in the Jordan Valley was being conducted by the British Mandatory Government. That August the surveyors camp was attacked and the camp leader Mr V. Serbinovitch together with two assistants were killed by bandits. On his last field group excursion Blake was provided a personal British Military Police escort Mr Jacob Vicky (Yakob Shviki). When the camp broke at the end, Blake and Vicky stayed on to explore further. As outlined in obituaries, on 4 July 1940, Blake and his escort Vicky were shot dead by Arab brigands at the mouth of Wadi Zoiir or Nahal Zohar in the Dead Sea Basin. Commemoration His former colleague Picard wrote of his contributions to improving geological knowledge of the Palestinian natural assets and closed the paper with Shaw-Welling's words: "His contribution to our knowledge of the geology of Palestine will be his permanent monument." Blake is buried in the Protestant Church in Jerusalem. The Israel Geological Society honoured his memory by erecting a plaque in 1960 near the spot where his life ended. Geopolitics Jemal Pasha, the Ottomans and German military support were driven from Jerusalem and the town surrendered to the British on 9 December 1917. Pasha had been brutally ruthless against Arab and Jewish residents alike. Germany introduced the Nuremberg Laws in 1936, which resulted in many Jews entering Palestine. This angered the majority Palestinian Arabs leading to the 1936-39 Arab revolt in Palestine, which the Haganah helped the British quell. In attempting to manage this the British government