Page:Palestine Exploration Fund - Quarterly Statement for 1894.djvu/129

Rh strata of Tell el Hesy. It shows that this was not a local Philistine type, and we may hope now to find it in other sites, furnishing a key to their age. About two and a half miles north of Riha (the modern Jericho), just after crossing Wady el Nuwei'meh we found the Arabs digging out stones from some low mounds, for a new building at Jericho. The ruins cover a space some four hundred and fifty yards by two hundred and fifty. We found many important Roman traces, a Corinthian capital, marble fragments of pavements, tesselatedtessellated [sic] pavements, bath tiles, well built walls, frescoed walls, &c. A detailed report will be given later. Canon Tristram and I talked the matter over, and in his evening lecture in the dining tent he gave a brief descripitiondescription [sic] of what we had observed, suggesting the strong probability that the place was Herod's Palace which he bought from Cleopatra. It was most gratifying to myself, the last explorer of the Fund, to have been associated in this discovery with one of its first explorers.

The Canon began by saying that in this deep depression of the Jordan Valley we have the key to the physical history of the world as well as to the history of the human race. We have here a problem of geology. The depth of the fissure at the north end of the Dead Sea is 1,600 feet below the Mediterranean level. An examination of the strata on the east and west sides shows that the fissure is no recent volcanic one. All the volcanic traces are superficial and subsequent to the Iocene period. The Jordan once flooded the whole valley, as fresh-water shells, similar to those found in the river to-day, occur on the top of the ridges. When the Canon began his work, absolutely nothing was known in the great museums of the fishes of Galilee and the Jordan. Now, 38 species have been found in the Sea of Galilee (27 by the Canon himself), and the fish turn out to be, not those of the Euphrates or the Orontes, but those of Tanganyika and the other great African lakes. Hence his belief that there once extended a great chain of lakes from Hermon to the Transvaal. It is the putting of little things together that has solved the great problems of the world. Like all lakes that have no outlet, the Dead Sea owes its extreme saltness to evaporation.

We now come to the human history. With the exception of Egyptian campaigns, the raid of Chedorlaomer is the oldest in history. We can trace his march to the point where he was met by Abraham on the plains to the north. At that time all the plain was as rich as this oasis of Eiha, as may be proved by digging anywhere through the marl to the alluvial soil. The Canon sought to drive out of people's heads the opinion that the Cities of the Plain were at the bottom of the Dead Sea—a story absolutely without foundation. That the cities were on the plain to the north is easily proved; it was from a hill between Bethel and Ai that "Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah." From this hill to-day you can see the plain but not the sea. Again, Abraham ascends a hill near Mamre and looks towards {not at) Sodom and sees the smoke rising; now, from this hill the intervening