Charles William Wilson and David George Hogarth

“ Papyrus grows in Lake Huleh, and rice and cereals thrive on its shores, whilst below the Sea of Galilee the vegetation is almost tropical. The flora and fauna present a large infusion of Ethiopian types; and the fish, with which the river is abundantly stocked, have a great affinity with those of the rivers and lakes of east Africa. Ere the Jordan enters the Dead Sea, its valley has become very barren and forbidding. It reaches the lake at a minus level of 1290 ft., the depression continuing downwards to twice that depth in the bed of the Dead Sea. ”

“ A Phrygian city, altitude 1200 ft. on the right bank of the Churuk Su (Lycus) , about 8 m. above its junction with the Menderes (Maeander) , situated on a broad terrace, 200 ft. above the valley and 6 m. N. of Laodicea. On the terrace rise calcareous springs, that have deposited vast incrustations of snowy whiteness. To these springs, which are warm and slightly sulphureous, and to the “Plutonium”—a hole reaching deep into the earth, from which issued a mephitic vapour—the place owed its celebrity and sanctity. ”

“ The walls are Arab, and no ruins of the great temple survive. The most noteworthy relic of antiquity is the sacred lake, on two sides of which can still be seen stepped quays and water-stairs. The first modern account of the site is in a short narrative appended by H. Maundrell to his Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem. He was at Mumbij in 1699.
The coinage of the city begins in the 4th century B.C. with an Aramaic series, showing the goddess, either as a bust with mural crown or as riding on a lion. ”

“ In summer most of the richer residents reside on the Lebanon, and in winter the governor of the Lebanon and many Lebanon notables inhabit houses in Beirut. The town has many fine houses, but the streets are unpaved and the bazaars mean. The Moslem inhabitants, being in a minority, have often shown themselves fanatical and turbulent. ”

“ Ruins of several churches survive, and also of a large basilica. There is a sulphureous pool which may represent the “Plutonium,” but it has no such deadly power as was ascribed to that pond. Ramsay thinks that the “Plutonium” was obliterated by Christians in the 4th century. Over 300 inscriptions have been collected, mostly sepulchral, whence Ramsay has deduced interesting facts about the very early Christian community which existed here. The site has been often visited and described, and was systematically examined in 1887 by parties under W. M. Ramsay and K. Humann respectively. ”

“ In any case the number of distinct sea-beaches seems to imply a succession of convulsive changes, more recent than the great Miocene upheaval, which are responsible for the shrinkage of the water into the three isolated pans now found. ”

“ Druses, 400; foreigners, 4100) . Berytus, whether it is to be identified with Hebrew Berothai or not (2 Sam. viii. 8; Ezek. xlvii. 16) , was one of the most ancient settlements on the Phoenician coast ”