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Rh down a continuous inclined plane, broken here and there by rapids and small falls; between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea its sinuosity is so great that in a direct distance of 65 m. it traverses at least 200 m. The mean fall is about 9 ft. in the mile. The Jordan has two great sources, one in Tell el-Kadi (Dan) whence springs the Nahr Leddan, a stream 12 ft. broad at its birth; the other at Banias (anc. Paneas, Caesarea-Philippi), some 4 m. N., where the Nahr Banias issues from a cave, about 30 ft. broad. But two longer streams with less water contest their claim, the Nahr Barrighit from Coelesyria, which rises near the springs of the Litany, and the Nahr Hasbany from Hermon. The four streams unite below the fortress of Banias, which once held the gate of the valley, and flow into a marshy tract now called Huleh (Semechonitis, and perhaps Merom of Joshua). There the Jordan begins to fall below sea-level, rushing down 680 ft. in 9 m. to a delta, which opens into the Sea of Galilee. Thereafter it follows a valley which is usually not above 4 m. broad, but opens out twice into the small plains of Bethshan and Jericho. The river actually flows in a depression, the Zor, from a quarter to 2 m. wide, which it has hollowed out for itself in the bed of the Ghor. During the rainy season (January and February), when the Jordan overflows its banks, the Zor is flooded, but when the water falls it produces rich crops. The floor of the Ghor falls gently to the Zor, and is intersected by deep channels, which have been cut by the small streams and winter torrents that traverse it on their way to the Jordan. As far south as Kurn Surtabeh most of the valley is fertile, and even between that point and the Dead Sea there are several well-watered oases. In summer the heat in the Ghor is intense, 110° F. in the shade, but in winter the temperature falls to 40°, and sometimes to 32° at night. During the seasons of rain and melting snow the river is very full, and liable to freshets. After twelve hours’ rain it has been known to rise from 4 to 5 ft., and to fall as rapidly. In 1257 the Jordan was dammed up for several hours by a landslip, probably due to heavy rain. On leaving the Sea of Galilee the water is quite clear, but it soon assumes a tawny colour from the soft marl which it washes away from its banks and deposits in the Dead Sea. On the whole it is an unpleasant foul stream running between poisonous banks, and as such it seems to have been regarded by the Jews and other Syrians. The Hebrew poets did not sing its praises, and others compared it unfavourably with the clear rivers of Damascus. The clay of the valley was used for brickmaking, and Solomon established brass foundries there. From crusading times to this day it has grown sugar-cane. In Roman times it had extensive palm-groves and some small towns (e.g. Livias or Julias opposite Jericho) and villages. The Jordan is crossed by two stone bridges—one north of Lake Huleh, the other between that lake and the Sea of Galilee—and by a wooden bridge on the road from Jerusalem to Gilead and Moab. During the Roman period, and almost to the end of the Arab supremacy, there were bridges on all the great lines of communication between eastern and western Palestine, and ferries at other places. The depth of water varies greatly with the season. When not in flood the river is often fordable, and between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea there are then more than fifty fords—some of them of historic interest. The only difficulty is occasioned by the erratic zigzag current. The natural products of the Jordan valley—a tropical oasis sunk in the temperate zone, and overhung by Alpine Hermon—are unique. 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. It receives two affluents, with perennial waters, on the left, the Yarmuk (Hieromax) which flows in from the volcanic Jaulan a little south of the Sea of Galilee, and the Zerka (Jabbok) which comes from the Belka district to a point more than half-way down the lower course. On the right the Jalud descends from the plain of Esdraelon to near Beisan, and the Far’a from near Nablus. Various salt springs rise in the lower valley. The rest of the tributaries are wadis, dry except after rains.

Such human life as may be found in the valley now is mainly migratory. The Samaritan villagers use it in winter as pasture-ground, and, with the Circassians and Arabs of the east bank, cultivate plots here and there. They retire on the approach of summer. Jericho is the only considerable settlement in the lower valley, and it lies some distance west of the stream on the lower slopes of the Judaean heights.

See W. F. Lynch, Narrative of the U.S. Expedition, &c. (1849); H. B. Tristram, Land of Israel (1865); J. Macgregor, Rob Roy on the Jordan (1870); A. Neubauer, La Géographie du Talmud (1868); E. Robinson, Physical Geography of the Holy Land (1865); E. Hull, Mount Seir, &c. (1885), and Memoir on the Geology of Arabia Petraea, &c. (1886); G. A. Smith, ''Hist. Geography of the Holy Land'' (1894); W. Libbey and F. E. Hoskins, The Jordan Valley, &c. (1905). See also.

 JORDANES, the historian of the Gothic nation, flourished about the middle of the 6th century. All that we certainly know about his life is contained in three sentences of his history of the Goths (cap. 50), from which, among other particulars as to the history of his family, we learn that his grandfather Paria was notary to Candac, the chief of a confederation of Alans and other tribes settled during the latter half of the 5th century on the south of the Danube in the provinces which are now Bulgaria and the Dobrudscha. Jordanes himself was the notary of Candac’s nephew, the Gothic chief Gunthigis, until he took the vows of a monk. This, according to the manner of speaking of that day, is the meaning of his words ante conversionem meam, though it is quite possible that he may at the same time have renounced the Arian creed of his forefathers, which it is clear that he no longer held when he wrote his Gothic history. The Getica of Jordanes shows Gothic sympathies; but these are probably due to an imitation of the tone of Cassiodorus, from whom he draws practically all his material. He was not himself a Goth, belonging to a confederation of Germanic tribes, embracing Alans and Scyrians, which had come under the influence of the Ostrogoths settled on the lower Danube; and his own sympathies are those of a member of this confederation. He is accordingly friendly to the Goths, even apart from the influence of Cassiodorus; but he is also prepossessed in favour of the eastern emperors in whose territories this confederation lived and whose subject he himself was. This makes him an impartial authority on the last days of the Ostrogoths. At the same time, living in Moesia, he is restricted in his outlook to Danubian affairs. He has little to say of the inner history and policy of the kingdom of Theodoric: his interests lie, as Mommsen says, within a triangle of which the three points are Sirmium, Larissa and Constantinople. Finally, connected as he was with the Alans, he shows himself friendly to them, whenever they enter into his narrative.

We pass from the extremely shadowy personality of Jordanes to the more interesting question of his works.

1. The Romana, or, as he himself calls it, De summa temporum vel origine actibusque gentis Romanorum, was composed in 551. It was begun before, but published after, the Getica. It is a sketch of the history of the world from the creation, based on Jerome, the epitome of Florus, Orosius and the ecclesiastical history of Socrates. There is a curious reference to Iamblichus, apparently the neo-platonist philosopher, whose name Jordanes, being, as he says himself, agrammatus, inserts by way of a flourish. The work is only of any value for the century 450–550, when Jordanes is dealing with recent history. It is merely a hasty compilation intended to stand side by side with the Getica.

2. The other work of Jordanes commonly called De rebus Geticis or Getica, was styled by himself De origine actibusque