Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/542

 52 C PALAESTINA. Beemed to be constantly bubbling and in motion. (Moljneux, p. 129; Lynch, pp. 288, 289.) And even the marvellous fact mentioned by Josephus, of the sea changing its colour three times a day, may derive some countenance from testimonies already cited, but more especially from the following notice of Lieut. Lynch: — "At one time, to-day, the sea assumed an aspect peculiarly sombre. . . . The great evaporation enveloped it in a thin, transparent vapour, its purple tinge contrasting strangely with the extraordinary colour of the sea beneath, and, where they blended in the distance, giving it the appearance of smoke from burning sulphur. It seemed a vast caldron of metal, fused but motion- less" (p. 324): " in the forenoon it had looked like ii sheet of foam." In the afternoon, of the same day, it " verified the resemblance which it has been said to bear to molten lead;" "at night it had the exact hue of absinthe" (p. 276). The earlier testimony of Prince Eadzivil may also be adduced, who, after citing Josephus, adds, that he had had ocular proof of the fact: "Nam mane habebat aquam nigrican- tem; meridie, sole intenso (sunt enim calores hie maximi) instar panni fit caerulea: ante occasum, ubi vis caloris remittit, tanquam limo permixta, modice rubet, vel potius flavescit." (^lerosolymitana Peregrinatio, p. 96.) A familiarity acquired by three weeks' diligent examination did not remove the feeling of awe inspired by its marvels : " So sudden are the chaijges of the weather, and so dif- ferent the aspects it presents, as at times to seem as if we were in a world of enchantments. We are alternately besido and upon the brink and the sur- face of a huge and sometimes seething caldron." (Lieut. Lynch, Bib. Sacr. vol. v. p. 768.) 5. Bitumen. — It is to be regretted that the American expedition has thrown no new hght on the production of the asphalt for which this sea was once so famous. Along almost the whole of the west coast numerous fragments of this substance are found among the pebbles, but there is no record of any considerable masses or fields of it being seen by any European travellers in modern times; unless, as is suggested by Irby and Mangles, the imaginary islands may be so regarded. But it is curious that the traditions of the natives still confirm the notice of Strabo that drops of pitch are distilled from rocks on the eastern shore; — a story repeated by various Ara-b sheikhs to Seetzen, Burckhardt, and Kobinson, the last of whom also mentions the fiict of their be- lief that the large masses of bitumen appear only after earthquakes. Thus, afterthe earthquake of 1834, a large quantity was thrown upon the shore near the south-western part of the sea, of which one tribe brought about 60 kuntars into market (each kuntar = 98 lbs.); and that after the earthquake of Jan. 1st, 1837, a large mass of bitumen (one said like an island, another like a house) was discovered floating on the sea, and was driven aground on the west side, not far to the north of Usdum. The Arabs swam oft" to it, and cut it up with axes so as to bring it ashore; as Tacitus tells us was done in his times, though he mentions what he considered the less pro- bable account of its flowing as a black liquid into the ships in a perpetual stream. (Robinson, Bib. Res. vol. ii. pp. 228 — 231.) That the water of this sea is destructive of all animal life, as all the ancients held, seems sufliciently proved; for although shells have been found on the shore, they hive been evidently washed down by the Jordan or other fresh water streams, and their inmates de- PALAESTINA. stroyed by the sea water ; while the birds that have been occasionally seen on its surface may be regarded as denizens of those same streams : and no animal life has been discovered in its waters. V. Volcanic Phaenomena. Something must now be said of the various theo- ries by which it has been attempted to account for the wonderful phaenomena above recorded of the de- pression of the Ghor, or Valley of the Jordan ; and of the formation and physical constitution of the Dead Sea. All theories suppose volcanic agency : and it is worthy of observation that, while the ear- liest historical and poetical records of the country bear witness to a familiarity with such phaenomena, the existing geological monuments confirm the testi- mony. Independently of the igneous agency by which the cities of the plain were destroyed, much of the descriptive imagery of the psalmists and prophets is borrowed from volcanos and earthquakes ; while there are evidences of an earthquake of very groat and probably destructive ^•iolence during the reign, of Uzziah, king of Judah, which formed a kind of era in the history of the country, beiug alluded to after an interval of 300 years. (^Amos, i. 1 ; Zecha- riah, xiv. 5.) The existing phaenomena may be briefly mentioned, beginning with one recently dis- covered by the American explorers, of whom " Jlr. Aulick reports a volcanic formation on the east shore, and brought specimens of lava" (p. 280). The mountain known as Jebel Musa, at the north- east of the Dead Sea, composed entirely of black bituminous limestone, which burns like coal, has not been investigated so fully as it deserves: but the basaltic columns in the vicinity of the sea of Ti- berias have been frequently noticed by travellers. The thermal fountains of CalliiThoe, Gadara, and Tiberias complete the chain of evidence, and render it highly probable that the extinct volcano noticed by Dr. Robinson at a short distance north-west of Sufed, the Frank Mountain, and others, may have been active during the historical period, and furnished the poets and prophets with the sublime imagery of the Bible. Having then discovered the agent of the geological changes that the country has passed through, it may be interesting to hear the opinion of two eminent and scientific writers on the great problem under consideration. Kussegger, who has himself carefully examined tlie phaenomena of the country and tested the obser- vations of preceding travellers, thus sums up the results {Reisen, p. 205) : — " From its exit from the lake of Tiberias to its en- trance into the Dead Sea the Jordan has a fall of 716 Paris feet and thus lies at the latter place 1341 Paris feet below the level of the Mediterra- nean sea. At the southern extremity of the Dead Sea lie the marshy lowlands of Wady-el-Ghor, the commencement of Wady-el-Araba, and apparently very little higher than the Dead Sea itself. These lowlands join Wady-el-Araba, the bed of which rises gently to the watershed which separates the water system of the Dead Sea from that of the Red Sea. As the watershed of Wady-el-Araba is appa- rently of no considerable height above the level of the sea, the length of this remarkable depression may be reckoned from the northern extremity of the plain El-Batiheh (to the north of the sea of Tibe- rias) to this watershed, a distance of full three de- grees. All the rock of this region consists of nor mal formations, amongst which those of the Jura and