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 GEOGRAPHY

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GEOGRAPHY

ad Dardan., 129). According to the measurements of the English surveyors, the area of the Holy Land is about 97U0 square miles, a trifle over that of the State of Vermont. These figures are humble indeed com- pared to those found in the Talmud, where (Talm. Babjd., "Sotah," 49') Palestine is given an area of 2,250,000 Roman square miles — more than half the area of the United States.

The Land of Israel is a "land of hills and plains" (Deut., xi, 11). To the north, two great ranges of mountains, the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon, or Hermon, separated by the deep valley of Coelesyria (El-Beqaa), rai.se their summits to a height of 9000 or 10,000 feet. The Lebanon was never within the bor- ders of Israel ; it remained the possession of the Pha?ni- cians and of their Syrian successors ; but the Hebrews liked to speak about its majestic grandeur, its slopes covered with oaks, firs, and cedars, its peaks capped with nearly perennial snow. Glistening closer on tlie northern frontier, Mt. Hermon — Sirion of the Sido- nians, Sanir of the Amorrhites, Jebe.l esh-Sheikh — was perhaps more familiar. On both sides of the Jordan the mountains of Palestine prolong these two ranges. West of the upper course of the river, the mountains of Galilee gradually decrease towards the plain of Esdrelon which alone divides the highland. Only a few hills, among which Thabor (A.V. Tabor; J. et- T&r), Moreh (XcM-Daht, "Little Hermon"), and the heights of Gelboe (A.V. Gilboa; J. FuqA'a),hoTdenng the plain to the east, connect the lesser ranges of Gali- lee with the mountains of Ephraim. The country then rises steadily, studded with rounded hills — among them Ebal and Garizim (A.V. Gerizim) — riven east and west by torrents, and is continued in the "Mountains of Juda" (3000 ft.), to decrease farther south (Bersabee, 700 ft.) and be connected through the "Mountains of Seir" {Jebel Madera, J. Maqra, J. 'Armf) and the J. et-Tih, with the first approaches of Sinai. The mountains of Ephraim and those of Juda decline gradually towards the Mediterranean Sea, the last western hillocks bordering on the rich plain of Saron (A.V. Sharon), south of Mount Carmel, and on the Sephelah (A.V. Shephelah). As the Jordan Val- ley sinks while the plateau rises, the eastern ravines are the deeper (the Cedron falls 4000 ft. between Jeru- salem and the Dead Sea), and west of the Dead Sea, the wilderness of Juda becomes a labyrinth of rugged and precipitous gorges, the favourite haunt of outlaws at all times (cf. I Sam., D.V.I Kings, xxii, xxiii, xxiv), the last stronghold of Jewish independence (Masada, April, A.D. 73), and the time-honoured retreat of the Essenes and of the early Christian hermits.

East of the Jordan, the Hermon range is prolonged by the "mountains of Basan" [A.V. Bashan] (Jdlan), to the north of the Yarmvik (Sheriat el-Menadhireh), the "mountains of Galaad" [A.V. Gilead] from the Yarmfik to the Arnon (/. 'AjMn and J. Jil'ad), north and south respectively to the Jaboc, or Wddy Zerk/i, the Abarim Mountains, and the highlands of Moab, east of the Dead Sea; farther south this orographic system is continued by the ranges east of the 'Araba (jeM, J. esh-SherA), the J. TAuran and the mountains of Western Arabia {Hedjaz, etc.). Tumbling down abruptly towards the Jordan and the Dead Sea, the mountains of Basan, of Galaad, and of Moab buttress the plateaux of the desert, where from time immemo- rial the nomad tribes of Bedouin have roamed. Only east of the watershed of the Yarmiik, some fifty miles from the Jordan, does the plateau rise to an altitude of 3500 feet in the volcanic region of the Hauran, where some peaks tower to a height of over 5000 feet, and north-east of which stretches, 25 miles long and 20 miles wide, and with the average depth of 500 feet, the broken sea of lava of the Trachon (Lejdh). With the exception of the Trachon, and the mountains of Hauran — which lie beyond the limits of classical Palestine — an<l of a small volcanic .section in the

north-east, which lies between Mount Hermon and the river Yarmiik, and extends westwards to Mount Tha- bor, the surface rock of Palestine is a soft limestone containing many fossils; it is hollowed by numberless caverns, some of which are mentioned in Scripture, once, probably, the dwelling-places of the early in- habitants of the country; in later times the favourite cells of anchorites.

The most wonderful geographical and geological feature of Palestine is the gigantic depression which divides the country into two halves. It is the natural continuation of the ravine through which the Orontes {Nahr el-'Asi) and the Leontes (A'. el-Litdni) have fur- rowed their beds. From "the entrance of Emath", the Gliur, as this depression is called by the Arabs, runs directly south, falling persistently with an average gradient of 15 feet per mile, and passes at an altitude of 1285 feet below the sea level, under the blue waters of the Bahr Liit, the bed of which reaches a depth of more than 1300 feet below the water level, this being the lowest point of this unparalleled depression. To- wards the south the bed of the Salt Sea rises, but the furrow is continued through the 'Araba, which, although in some places it goes to a height of 781 feet above the Red Sea, remains much lower than the bor- dering regions, and finally plunges into the Gulf of 'Aqaba. From the "waters of Merom" (Bahrat el- Huleh) to the Lake of Tiberias (Bahr Tabariych) the Ghor is scarcely more than a narrow gap; it broadens to about four miles south of the lake, then narrows to a mile and a half before reaching the plain of Beisan, where it spreads to a breadth of eight miles. South of 'Ain es-SaqiU, down to the confluence of the Jaboc, the valley is only two miles wide; but it soon expands again and north of the Dead Sea measures twelve to fourteen miles.

Inside the Ghor the Jordan has ploughed its double bed. The larger bed, the Zor, is an alluvial plain, the width of which varies from 1200 feet to a mile and a half; it is sunken eighteen to twenty feet in the upper course of the river, forty to ninety feet in the middle course, and about one hundred and eighty feet at some distance north of the Dead Sea. The Zor is very fertile except in its few last miles (the 'Arahah or "desert" of Scripture), where the salt-saturated soil is barren and desolate. Sunken within the Zor, and hidden behind a dense screen of oleanders, acacias, thorns, and similar shrubbery, the Jordan (esh-Sheri- 'at el-Kebtr, "the Great Trough ") follows its serpen- tine course, swiftly rolling its cream-coloured waters through a succession of rapids which render it prac- tically unnavigable. "The Great Trough" of Pales- tine is much narrower than its celebrity might lead one to suppose. A few miles below Lake Hiileh, its width is only 75 feet; about twenty miles, as the crow flies, north of the Dead Sea, it measures some 115 feet; but as it goes down towards the Sea, the river broadens to 225 feet. Before the Roman period no bridges ex- isted over the Jordan ; communications were active, nevertheless, between both banks, thanks to the shal- lowness of the water, which is fordable in five or six places (Jos., ii, 7; Judges, iii, 28; vii, 24; xii, 5, 6, etc.). Early in the spring, however, this is utterly impossible, for the river, swollen by the melting snow of Mount Hermon, overflows its banks and spreads over the whole area of the Zor (Jos., iii, 15; I Par., xii, 15; Ecclus., xxiv, 36). The Jordan is formed by the union of three springs, respectively known as Nahrel-Hasbani, N. el-Leddan, and N. Banlyas, which meet nine miles north of Lake Huleh. On both sides it receives many tributaries, very few of which are explicitly mentioned in Scripture. We may mention, on the west side, the N. el-Bireh, which comes down from Mount Thabor, the N. el-JalCid, bringing down from Ncbi Dahl the waters of 'Ain-Jal(^d, possibly the site of the trial of Gideon's companions (Judges, vii, 4, 0), the Wady Far 'ah, which originates near Mount