Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/540

 524 PALAESTINA. which circumstance its name is derived. It receives no animal body ; bulls and camels float in it ; and this is the origin of the report that nothing sinks in it. In length it exceeds 100 miles; its greatest breadth is 25 miles, its least 6. On the east of it ]ies Arabia Nomadum, on the soutli Macheriis, for- merly the second fortress of Judaea after Jerusalem. On the same side there is .situated a hot- spring, posse.ssing medicinal properties, named Callirrhoe, indicating by its name the virtues of its waters." (^H!st Nat. lib. v. 16.) The last author wiio will be here cited is Tacitus, whose account may be given in the original. He appears in thi.s, as in other passages, to have drawn largely on Josephus, but had certainly con- sulted otiier writers. He wrote A. D. 97. " Lacus immensoambitu, specie maris, .sapore cor- ruptinr, gravitate odoris accolis pestifer, neque vento impellilur,neque piscesaut suetas aquis volucres pati- tur. Incertae undae : superjacta, ut solido, ferunt: pe- riti imperitique nandi perinde attolluntur. Certo anni, bitumen egerit : ctijus legendi usum, ut ceteras artes, e.xperientia docuit. Ater suapte natura liquor, et sparse aceto concretus, innatat: hunc manu cap- tuni, qtiibus ea cura, in summa navis trahunt. Inde, iiullo juvante, influit. oneratque, donee abscindas: nee ab.scindere aere ferrove possis: fugit cruorem vestemque infectam sanguine, quo feminae per menses exsolvuntur: sic veteres auctores. Sed gnari lo- corum tradunt, undantes bitumine moles pelli, ma- nuque trahi ad liltus: mox, ubi vapore terrae, solis inaruerint securibus cuneisque, ut trabes aut saxa, discindi. Haud procul inde campi, quos ferunt olim uberes, magnisque urbibus habitatos, fuln:iinum jactu arsis.se: et manere vestigia, terramque ipsam specie torridam, vim frugiferam perdidisse. Nam cuncta sponte edita, aut manu sata, sive herba tenus aut flore, seu solitam in speciem adolevere, atra et inania velut in cinerem vanescunt. Ego sicut iucl tas quondam urbes igne coelesti flagrasse concesserim, ita halitu lacus infici terram, corrumpi superfusum spirituin, eoque foetus segetum et autumni putrescere reor, solo coeloque juxta gravi." (Hist. v. 6.) This sea is subsequently noticed by Galen (a. d. 164) and Pau.sanias (cir. A. D. 174), but their ac- counts are evidently borrowed from some of those above cited from Greek, Jewish, and Latin writers; in illustration of whose statements reference will now be made to modern travellers, who have had better opportunities of testing the truth than were presented to them; and it will appear that those statements, even in their most marvellous particu- lars, are wonderfully trustworthy; and that the hy- potheses by which they endeavoured to account for the phenomena of this extraordinary lake are con- firmed by the investigations of modern science. 1. General Remarks. — It is deeply to be regretted that the results arrived at by the American explor- ing expedition, under Lieut. Lynch, have been given to the world only in the loose, unsystematic and thoroughly unsati.sfactory notes scattered through the personal narrative published by that officer; and that his official report to his government has not been made available for scientific purposes. The few meagre facts worth chronicling have been extracted in a number of the Bibliotheca Sacra, from which they are here copied. (Vol. v. p. 767, and vol. vii. p. 396.) The distance in a straight line from the fountain 'Ain-el-Feshkkah, on the west, directly across to the eastern shore, was nearly 8 statute miles. The soundings gave 696 feet as the greatest PALAESTINA. depth. Another line was run diagonally from the same point to the south-east, to a chasm forming the outlet of the hot springs of Callirrhoij. The bottom of the northern half of the sea is almost an entire plain. Its meridional lines at a short distance from the shore scarce vary in depth. The deepest .soundings thus far are 188 fathoms, or 1128 feet. Near the shore the bottom is generally an incrusta- tion of salt; but the intermediate one is soft, with many rectangular crystals, mostly cubes, of pure .salt. The southern half of the sea is as shallow as the northern one is deep, and for about one-fourth of its entire length the depth does not exceed 3 fathoms or 18 feet. Its southern bed presented no crystals, but the shores are lined with incrustations of salt. Thus, then, the bottom of the Dead Sea forms two submerged plains, an elevated and a depressed one. The first, its southern part, of slimy mud covered by a shallow bay: the last, its northern and largest portion, of mud with incrustations and rectangular crystals of salt, at a great depth, with a narrow- ravine running through it, corresponding with the bed of the river Jordan at one extremity and the Wady-el-Jeih at the other. The opposite shores of the peninsula and the west coast present evident marks of disruption. 2. Dimensions. — It will have been seen that the ancient authorities differ widely as to the size oi" the sea: Diodorus stating it at 500 stadia by 60; Pliny at 100 miles in length, by 25 miles in its widest, and 6 miles in its narrowest part; Josephus at 280 stadia by 150. Strabo's measure evidently belongs to the Sirbonis Lacus, with which he con- founded the Dead Sea, and is copied from Diodorus's description of that lake. Of these measures the earliest, viz. that of Diodorus, comes nearest to modern measurement. We have seen that a straight line from ^Ain-el-Feshkhah to the east shore mea- sured nearly 8 statute miles: from 'AinJidydirecUy across to the mouth of the Arnon the distance was about 9 statute miles. The length of the sea does not seem to have been measured by the Americans, but the near agreement of their actual measurement of the width with the computation of Dr. Robinson may give credit to his estimate of the length also. His observations resulted in fixing the breadth of the sea at ^Ai7i Jidy at about 9 geographical miles, and the length about 39, — 'Ain Jidy being situated nearly at the middle point of the western coast. {Bih. Res. vol. ii. p. 217.) 3. Saltness and Specijic Gravity. — Its exces- sive saltness, noticed by Josephus, is attested by all travellers; and is indicated by the presence of crystals of salt in profusion over the bed of the .sea, — "at one time Stelhvagen's lead brought up nothing but crystals," — as well as by the district of rock-salt at the south-west quarter of the sea, where the American officers discovered " a lofty, round pillar, standing detached from the general mass, composed of solid salt, capped with carbonate of lime, cylindrical in front and pyramidal behind, about 40 feet high, resting on a kind of oval pe- destal from 40 to 60 feet above the level of the sea." (Lynch, Expedition, p. 307.) In the southern bay of the sea, where the water encroaches more or less according to the sea.son, it dries off into shallows and small pools, which in the end deposit a salt as fine and as well bleached, in some in- stances, as that in regular salt-pans. In this part, where the salt water stagnates and evaporates, Irby and Mangles "found several persons engaged in I