Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/608

590 explore the Dead Sea. Under ordinary circumstances the proposal would doubtless have been strangled with red tape; but fortunately the Secretary at that time was Mr. John Y. Mason, of Virginia. Mr. Mason was famous for his good nature: both at Washington and at Paris, where he was afterward minister, this predominant trait has left a multitude of amusing traditions; it was of him that Thomas Benton said, "To be supremely happy he must have his paunch full of oysters and his hands full of cards."

The Secretary granted permission, but evidently gave the matter not another thought. As a result, came an expedition the most comical and one of the most rich in results to be found in American annals. Never was anything so happy-go-lucky. Lieutenant Lynch started with his hulk, with hardly an instrument save those ordinarily found on shipboard, and with a body of men probably the most unfit for anything like scientific investigation ever sent on such an errand; fortunately, he picked up a young instructor in mathematics, Mr. Anderson, and added to his apparatus two strong iron boats.

Arriving, after a tedious voyage, on the coast of Asia Minor, he set at work. He had no adequate preparation in general history, archæology, or the physical sciences, but he had his American patriotism, energy, pluck, pride, and devotion to duty, and these qualities stood him in good stead. With great labor he got the iron boats across the country. Then the tug of war began. First of all investigators, he forced his way through the whole length of the river Jordan and from end to end of the Dead Sea. There were constant difficulties, geographical, climatic, and personal, but Lynch cut through them all. He was brave or shrewd, as there was need. Anderson proved an admirable helper, and together they made surveys of distances, altitudes, depths, and sundry simple investigations in a geological, mineralogical, and chemical way. Much was poorly done, much was left undone, but the general result was most honorable both to Lynch and Anderson, and Secretary Mason found that his easy-going patronage of the enterprise was the best act of his official life.

The results of this expedition on public opinion were most curious. Lynch was no scholar in any sense; he had traveled little, and thought less on the real questions underlying the whole investigation; as to the difference in depth of the two parts of the lake, he jumped—with a sailor's disregard of logic—to the conclusion that it somehow proved the mythical account of the overwhelming of the cities, and he indulges in reflections of a sort probably suggested by his recollections of American Sunday schools.

Especially noteworthy is his treatment of the legend of Lot's wife. He found the pillar of salt. It happened to be at that