Josias Leslie Porter

“ The Arab also pitches his tent beside them, and sometimes cultivates a few patches of grain, and tobacco. The heat causes such excessive evaporation that though the Jordan and other smaller streams fall into the lake the water seems to be gradually decreasing. The marshes along the shore, especially to the north and south, emit pestilential exhalations during summer and autumn which are fatal to strangers, and which make the inhabi tants of Jericho, and the few poor tribes who pitch their tents in the surrounding territory, weak and sickly. ”

“ We know that at the time of earthquakes bitumen seems to be detached from the bottom of the lake. Every thing leads to the conclusion that the agency of fire was at work. The kindling of such a mass of combustible material, either by lightning from heaven, or by other electrical agency, combined with an earthquake ejecting other bitumen or sulphur from tho lake, would soon spread devastation over the plain, so that the smoke of the country would go up as the smoke of a furnace. ”

“ The historical notices of the Dead Sea extend back nearly 4000 years. When Lot looked down from the heights of Bethel, he "beheld all the plain of the Jordan that it was well watered, before the Lord destroyed Sodom, even as the garden of the Lord" (Gen. xiii. 10) . The region is further described as a " deep valley " (Emek, Gen. xiv. 3, 8) , dis tinguished by " fertile fields " (Siddim) . The aspect now is entirely different. There must have been a lake then as now ; but it was smaller, and had a margin of fertile plain, especially on the southern end, " as thou comest unto Zoar." ”

“ On the south of the sea lies a low marshy plain, partially covered with jungles of reeds, tamarisk, and broom. The mountain range along the eastern side of the Dead Sea is the sustaining wall of the tableland of Moab, which has an elevation of about 2800 feet, and is therefore 4000 feefc above the lake. At the southern end the range is composed of red sandstone, a continuation of the " red " mountains of Edom. At the valley of Kerek the sandstone gives place to limestone ; but further north it again appears in thick strata below the limestone. ”

“ They show that at one period the whole Jordan valley was under water ; while the sides of the valley indicate successive stages in the fall of the water from the time when its sur face was on the level of the ocean down to the present age. The hill-sides and strips of plain on both the eastern and western banks of the Dead Sea are marked by a series of terraces or shore-lines. The highest has an elevation cor responding to the level of the Mediterranean. ”

“ Winter is the proper season for such researches. Rain seldom falls; and the air during the depth of winter is fresh, and cold almost unknown. The following are the leading works which treat of the Dead Sea : Robinson, Physical Geography of Palestine ”