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 The water of the Dead Sea had teen previously analysed by Messrs Macquer, Lavoisier, and Sage, of whose experiments an account was published in the Mémoires de l’Academie des Sciences for the year 1778. Their analysis afforded results greatly different from those obtained by Dr Marcet, which that gentleman ascribes to some inaccuracy in their mode of operating. We find, however, that the processes employed by Dr Marcet have been called in question, and the accuracy of his proportions denied by a very skilful Chemist, who subsequently instituted an analysis of the Dead Sea water. We allude to Klaproth, who procured a specimen brought from the East by the Abbé Mariti, and whose analysis offered the following proportions:

Klaproth also found the specific gravity to be 1,245 instead of 1,211; agreeing in this respect more nearly with Macquer and Lavoisier, who stated it at 1,240. The specific gravity of Dr Marcet’s specimen may, however, have been less, from its having been taken from the Lake, not far from the influx of the Jordan, on which account it might be somewhat diluted.

Dr Clarke mentions, that the inhabitants of the country still regard the Dead Sea with feelings of terrorterror. [sic] This may be owing to the tradition that its waters cover the engulphed cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, or to the ideas entertained of the peculiar insalubrity of its exhalations. It is much to be regretted, that this Traveller was prevented by the Arabs, who infested the neighbourhood, from exploring the Lake, which he only saw at some distance; as with his attainments, he could not have failed to gather some interesting information regarding its natural history. Though M. de Chateaubriand, a few years after, succeeded in reaching its banks, he could only, owing to the same cause, remain a few hours; and besides, however capable of interesting his readers, he was not so well qualified for accurate or scientific observation. While seme of his facts run counter to the ancient fables, others seem calculated to add to the list; as, when he discovers a resemblance between the noise of its waves, and the stiffled clamours of the people whom they engulphed! The following passage, however, is of the antifabulous kind, and contains some information which cannot but be acceptable to our readers. “There is scarcely any one who has not heard of the famous tree of Sodom; a tree, said to produce an apple pleasing to the eye, but bitter to the taste, and full of ashes. Tacitus, in the fifth book of his History, and Josephus, in his Jewish war, are, I believe, the two first authors that made mention of the singular fruits of the Dead Sea. Foulcher de Chartres, who travelled in Palestine about the year 1100, saw the deceitful apple, and compared it to the pleasures of the world. Since that period, some writers, as Ceverius de Vera, Baumgarten, de la Vallée, Troilo, and certain Missionaries, confirm Foulcher’s statement; others, as Reland, Father Neret, and Maundrell, are inclined to believe that this fruit is but a poetic image of our false joys; while others again, as Pococke and Shaw, absolutely question its existence.

“Amman seemed to remove the difficulty. He gave a description of the tree, which, according to him, resembles the hawthorn, “The fruit,” says he, “is a small apple, of a beautiful colour.”

“Hasselquist, the Botanist, followed, and he tells a totally different story. The apple of Sodom, as we are informed by him, is not the fruit either of a tree or of a shrub, but the production of the Solanum melongena of Linnæus. “It is found in great abundance,” says he, “round Jericho, in the valleys near the Jordan, and in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea. It is true that these apples are sometimes full of dust; but this appears only when the fruit is attacked by an insect (tenthredo), which converts the whole of the inside into dust, leaving nothing but the rind entire, without causing it to lose any of its colour.”

“Who would not imagine, after this, that the question had been set completely at rest, by the authority of Hasselquist, and the still greater authority of Linnæus, in his Flora Palæstina? No such thing. M. Seetzen, also a man of science, and the most modern of all Travellers, since he is still in Arabia, does not agree with Hasselquist in regard to the Solanum Sodomeum. “I saw,” says he, “during my stay at Karrak, in the house of the Greek clergyman of that town, a species of cotton resembling silk. This cotton, as he told me, grows in the plain of El Gor, near the southern extremity of the Dead Sea, on a tree like a fig-tree, called Abescha-ez; it is found in a fruit resembling the pomegranate. It struck me, that this fruit, which has no pulp or flesh in the inside, and is unknown in the rest of Palestine, might be the celebrated apple of Sodom.”

“Here I am thrown into an awkward dilemma; for I too have the vanity to imagine that I have discovered the long-sought fruit. The shrub which bears it grows two or three leagues from the mouth of the Jordan: it is thorny, and has small taper leaves. It bears a considerable resemblance to the shrub described by Amman; and its fruit is exactly like the little Egyptian lemon, both in size and colour. Before it is ripe, it is filled with a corrosive and saline juice; when dried it yields a blackish seed, which may be compared to ashes, and which in taste resembles bitter pepper.” See Chateaubriand’s Travels in Greece, Palestine, Egypt, and Barbary.—Dr Clarke’s Travels in Greece, Egypt, and the Holy Land.—Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London for 1807.—Klaproth, Beiträge zur Chemischen Kenntniss der Mineral Körper. B. 5. p. 185. Berlin, 1810. ASSAM, a kingdom of Asia, situated on the northwest of Bengal, between the 25th and 26th degrees