this sea. the dividing ridge between the Mediterranean and From Beni Na'im, the reputed tomb of Lot, upon that ridge, it is supposed that Abraham looked "toward all the land of the plain," and beheld the smoke " as the smoke of a furnace." The inference from the Bible, that this entire chasm was a plain sunk and "overwhelmed" by the wrath of God, seems to be sustained by the extraordinary character of our soundings. The bottom of this sea consists of two submerged plains, an elevated and a depressed one; the last averaging thirteen, the former about thirteen hundred feet below the surface. Through the northern, and largest and deepest one, in a line corresponding with the bed of the Jordan, is a ravine, which again seems to correspond with the Wady el-Jeib, or ravine within a ravine, at the south end of the sea. Between the Jabok and this sea, we unexpectedly found a sudden break-down in the bed of the Jordan. If there be a similar break in the water-courses to the south of the sea, accompanied with like volcanic characters, there can scarce be a doubt that the whole Ghor has sunk from some extraordinary convulsion, preceded, most probably, by an eruption of fire, and a general conflagration of the bitumen which abounded in the plain. I shall ever regret that we were not authorized to explore the southern Ghor to the Red Sea. All our observations have impressed me forcibly with the conviction that the mountains are older than the sea. Had their relative levels been the same at first, the torrents would have worn their beds in a gradual and correlative slope; whereas, in the northern section, the part supposed to have been so deeply engulfed, although a soft, bituminous, limestone prevails, the torrents plunge down several hundred feet, while on both sides of the southern tion, we must hasten to complete the historical notice of its incidents, by stating, that before quitting the shores of the Dead Sea, the party made an excusion to Kerak, with the view principally of affording the men an intermediate refreshment from the close atmosphere of the lake. Here there are about 1000 Christians kept in most oppressive subjection by about one third of the number of Moslem Arabs, who live mostly in tents outside the town. They have commenced building a church in the hope of keeping all together, and as a safe place of refuge for their wives and children in times of trouble; but the locusts and the sirocco have for the last seven years blasted the fields, and nearly all spared by these distractions has been swept away by the Arabs. They furnished the party with the subjoined appeal to the Christians in America, and which deserves to be known in this country. We beg your excellency to help us in this undertaking, for we are very weak. The land has been unproductive, and visited by the locust for the last seven years. The church is delayed in not being accomplished for want of funds, for we are a few Christians surrounded by Muslims. This being all that is necessary to write to you, more. The trustees in your bounty. ABD' ALLAH EN NAHAS, Sheikh. portion the ravines come down without abruptness, Christian brothers of America, we need say no although the head of Wady Kerak is more than a thousand feet higher than the head of Wady Ghuweir. Most of the ravines, too-as reference to the map will show-have a southward inclination near their outlets; that of Zerka Main or Callirohoe especially, which, next to the Jordan, must pour down the greatest volume of water in the rainy season. But even if they had not that deflection, the argument which has been based on this supposition would be untenable; for tributaries, like all other of Kerak they were, on their return, threatened streams, seek the greatest declivities, without regard to angular inclination. The Yermak flows into the Jordan at a right angle, and the Jabok with an acute one to its descending course. There are many other things tending to the same conclusion; among them the isolation of the mountain of Usdum; its difference of contour and of range, and its consisting entirely of a volcanic product. Kerak, Jûmad Awah, 1264. These poor people behaved very well, as they always do, to our travellers; but from the Arabs with much danger-with greater danger, indeed, than had previously been known. But this and all dangers passed, and the survey of the lake being soon after completed, the boats, no longer needed, were taken to pieces, and sent, with two camels' loads of specimens, to Jerusalem, whither the party itself followed by the route of Santa Saba. After some stay there they crossed the country to Jaffa. Nor was this without object or labor, a line of levels having to be carried, with the spirit level of the most recent and improved construction, (Troughton's,) from the chasm of the But it is for the learned to comment on the facts we have laboriously collected. Upon ourselves the result is a decided one. We entered upon this sea with conflicting opinions. One of the party was sceptical, and another, I believe, a professed unbeliever of the Mosaic account. After twenty-two Dead Sea, through the desert of Jordan, days' close investigation, if I am not mistaken, we are unanimous in the conviction of the truth of the scriptural account of the destruction of the cities of the plain. I record with diffidence the conclusions we have reached, simply as a protest against the shallow deductions of would-be-unbelievers. Pp. 378-380. "over precipices and mountain ridges, and down and across yawning ravines, and for much of the time under a scorching sun." The merit of this operation is assigned to Lieutenant Dale. The results are not stated, but are said to be confirmatory of the skill and extraordinary accuracy of the triangulation of Lieutenant Symonds. As we have chosen a way of our own in which At Acre the party divided, one portion proceedto state some of the other results of this explora-ing in a Turkish brig to Beirut, and the other re 5 tool, InCes even deep Feuse rally part of the business is, however, passed but lightly a few days, however, they all recovered except over, there being no very new or very adventurous that able officer, who, after lingering a few weeks, work to execute, and, as it seems to us, the officers died of the same low nervous fever which had being but ill-informed as to the points which in carried off Costigan and Molyneux-the former this part specially demanded attention. In his way up the shore of the lake of Galilee, Lieutenant Lynch very modestly expresses an opinion in favor of Tell Hum as the probable site of Capernaum, in preference to Dr. Robin explorers of the Dead Sea. He died at a village twelve miles up the Lebanon, to which he had withdrawn, in the hope of being invigorated by the mountain air. The afflicted commander, determined to take the body home, if possible, imme son's Khan Minryeh; and his return to the old diately started with it to Beirut. "It was a slow, ways we hail as a proof of his sound judgment. dreary ride, down the rugged mountain by twiIn respect of Bethsaida he is less fortunate, light. As I followed the body of my late com confounding the north-east Bethsaida with the panion, accompanied only by worthy Arabs, and western Bethsaida, as the city of Andrew and Peter. But mistakes of this sort swarm throughout the work. The chances being only a degree or two less in this work than in Montague's that we encounter a blunder in connection with every proper name that turns up.* Between the two lakes the river hastens-a rapid and foaming stream, between a thick border of willows, oleanders, and ghurrah. Of the lake Huleh nothing is added to our previous information, indeed, scarcely anything is said; and we are quite distressed to say that the commander does not seem to have been at all aware that it was an object of interest to ascertain whether the river from Hasbeiya, which, as the remoter source, must be regarded as the true Jordan, unites with the river from Banias before it enters the lake Huleh, or else reaches it as a separate and parallel stream. Not a word is said on this point, and there is no map or plan that might indicate the view taken of the matter. thought of his young and helpless children, I could scarce repress the wish that I had been taken and he been spared." The body was, however, not taken home, but was deposited, "amid unhidden tears and stifled sobs," in the Frank cemetery at Beirut. There is much reason to apprehend that the report of the results of this expedition has suffered much from the loss of this accomplished officer. We see from a paper by Dr. Robinson in the Bibliotheca Sacra, for November, 1848, that he anticipated this would be the case. He states The sources of the Jordan have been so often visited, and are so well known, that we could hardly expect much that is new on the subject. We certainly do not find anything that was not previously well known. Upon the whole, this exploration of the Upper Jordan is a failure altogether. But this is excusable from the unbent attention of men whose energies had of late been greatly overtasked, and who regarded the great objects of their undertaking as already accomplished. The party proceeded to Damascus, and returned by way of Baalbek to Beirut. It was with dis Lieutenant Dale had reached the age of thirtyfive; he was a man of fine appearance and elegant manners, and was selected by Lieutenant Lynch to be his companion because of his experience in the exploring expedition under Captain Wilkes, and as an engineer, first in connection with the coast survey, and afterwards in Florida. His loss will doubtless be greatly felt in making up the report of the expedition, the end of which he was permitted to behold, but not to participate its fruits, nor to enjoy its rewards. * We note a few specimens. It is "Collingwood," and not Jervis, who is described as breaking the enemy's line at Cape St. Vincent. The prophet "Isaiah," We grieve to add, from the preface of the volume before us-" His wife has since followed him to the grave; but in his name he has left a rich inheritance to his children." These are sad words, when we recollect the shortness of the interval between the return of the expedition and the appearance of this statement. not Elijah, as resting under the juniper-tree in the wil derness. Reland is throughout "Reyland." "The Arab has no name for wine, the original Arabic word for which is now applied to coffee!" The truth being, that one of may Arabic words for wine is so applied. "J. Robinson, D. D., of New York," for E. Robinson, D. D. "The Chinese Kotan" for "Kotou." "Almeidan" for "Atmaidan." "We saw the river Cayster (modern Meander!") "Acre derived its name from the church of St. Jean d'Acre." "Saul and his three sons threw themselves upon their swords." "Near the palace [of Beschiktasche on the Bosphorus] stood the column of Simeon and Daniel Stylites, two saintly fools, who spent most of their lives upon its summunit." Simeon was never near the Bosphorus. But enough of this. About a week after, being a full month after the return to Beirut, the party embarked on board a French brig for Malta, being tired of waiting longer for the Supply. At Malta they were joined by that vessel on the 12th September, and reëmbarking in her, sped homeward, reaching New York early in December, after an absence of something above one year. Having thus traced the course of the expedition, we must return to offer the reader some remarks upon the Dead Sea, in connection with those researches concerning it which this American expedition may be regarded as having consummated. The name of "Dead Sea" is not known in Scripture, in which it is mentioned by the various names of the East Sea, the Sea of Sodom, the Sea of the Desert, and the Salt Sea. In Jose t not. look, hear. likely it with phus and the classical writers, it is known by the perfection; but there are others with which these name of the Lake of Asphaltites, from the great conditions agree well, and which will there yield quantities of bitumen it produced. Its current their fruits. There is not much evidence on this name doubtless originated in the belief that no subject to be found in travellers, who have seldom living thing could subsist in its waters. In the been there in the season of fruit. But our exincidental allusions to it in the Old Testament- peditionists found divers kinds of plants and for it is not named in the New-there is nothing shrubs in vigorous blossom, and which might to suggest a foundation for the statements which therefore be expected to yield their fruits in due have since been disproved; and all recent re- season. However, the general character of the search confirms the scriptural intimations. We no sooner, however, get out of the Bible into the Apocrypha, than we are in the region of exaggeration and tradition. The author of the Wisdom of Solomon, speaking of the cities of the plain, says-" Of whose wickedness even to this day the waste land that smoketh is a testimony, and plants bearing fruits that never come to ripe shores is dismal, from the general absence of vegetation except at particular spots; and it must be admitted that the exhalations and saline deposits are as unfriendly to vegetable life as the waters are to animal existence. We suspect, however, that the writer of Wisdom, had in view those same famous apples of Sodom, of which Josephus speaks as of a peculiar ness; and a standing pillar of salt is a monument product of the shores of this lake. "These fruits," of an unbelieving soul."-x. 7. Here are three says Josephus, "have a color as if they were fit points-smoke rising from the lake; plants to be eaten; but if you pluck them with your whose fruits will not ripen in this atmosphere; hands, they dissolve into smoke and ashes." So and the pillar of salt into which Lot's wife was turned. Now it must be confessed that this smoke was a very suitable incident for the imagination to rest upon. It was in keeping. It agreed with the doom in which at least the southern gulf of the lake originated, and suggested that the fires then kindled, and by which the guilty cities were consumed, still smouldered in the depths or upon the shores of the Asphaltic Lake. This smoke, however, turns out to be no other than the dense mist from the active evaporation going on upon the surface, which often overhangs the lake in the morning, and is only dissipated as the sun waxes hot. This is frequently mentioned by our expeditionists. It is seen not exclusively in the morning: At one time to-day the sea assumed an aspect peculiarly sombre. Unstirred by the wind, it lay smooth and unruffled as an inland lake. The great evaporation enclosed it in a thin transparent vapor, its purple tinge contrasting strongly with the extraordinary color 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 motionless.-P. 324. The idea of fire, which is connected with that of smoke, may in part also have originated in the intensely phosphorescent character of these heavy waters by night. We are not certain that this has been noticed by any other than the present travellers. The surface of the sea (says Lieutenant Lynch) was one wide sheet of phosphorescent foam, and the waves, as they broke upon the shore, threw a sepulchral light upon the dead bushes and scattered fragments of rock. Then there are the fruits which will not ripen. It is evident that there are many plants to which the saline exhalations and intense heat of the deep basin of the Dead Sea must be uncongenial, and which will therefore scarcely bring forth fruit to Tacitus : "The herbage may spring up, and the trees may put forth their blossoms, they may even attain the usual appearance of maturity, but with this florid outside, all within turns black, and moulders into dust." This plant has of course been much sought after by travellers. Hasselquist and others thought it the fruit of the Solanum melongena, or egg-plant, which is abundant in this quarter, but which only exhibits the required characteristics when attacked by insects. But since Seetzen and Irby and Mangles, there has been no question that the renowned "Apple of Sodom" is no other than the Osher of the Arabs, the Asclepias procera of the early writers, but now forming part of the genus Callotropis. Dr. Robinson gives a good account of it; and our expeditionists add nothing to the information already possessed concerning it. The plant is a perennial, specimens of which have been found from ten to fifteen feet high, and seven or eight feet in girth. It is a gray, cork-like bark, with long oval leaves. The fruit resembles a large smooth apple or orange, and when ripe is of a yellow color. It is even fair to the eye, and soft to the touch, but when pressed, it explodes with a puff, leaving in the hand only the shreds of the rind and a few fibres. It is indeed chiefly filled with air like a bladder, which gives it the round form, while in the centre is a pod containing a quantity of fine silk with seeds. When green, the fruit, like the leaves and the bark, affords, when cut or broken, a viscous, white milky fluid, called by the Arabs Osher-milk, (Leben-osher,) and regarded by them as a cure for barrenness. This plant, however, which from being in Palestine found only on the shores of the Dead Sea, was locally regarded as being the special and characteristic product of that lake, is produced also in Nubia, Arabia, and Persia; which at once breaks up this one of the mysteries of the Dead Sea. It is no doubt found on those shores from the climate being here warmer, and therefore more congenial to it than in any other part of Palestine. THE RIVER JORDAN AND THE DEAD SEA. 13 Not a word is here said respecting the connection of this pillar with Lot's wife; but in a note it is pointed out that " a similar pillar is mentioned by Josephus, who expresses his belief of its being the identical one into which Lot's wife had been transformed." This is cautious and judicious. Montague's sailor, however, to whom this sort of thing was specially suited, speaks with less reserve; and we remember that this portion of his book had a run through the press in the United States, having been communicated by the publishers before the work appeared. It was well chosen for the purpose of exciting the curiosity of the public for the disclosures the book was to contain. After a somewhat bald description of the pillar, the writer proceeds, and informs us that it was sixty feet high and forty feet in circumference. He then goes on: As to the pillar of salt into which Lot's wife was turned, the existence of which has been recorded by many traditions, and of which so many travellers have heard vague reports from the natives; it is one of the most remarkable discoveries of our Expedition, that a pillar of salt does exist, which is, without doubt, that to which the native reports refer, and which, or one like which, may have formed the basis of the old traditions. That this pillar, or any like it, is or was that into which Lot's wife was turned, is another question, which it is not needful here to discuss. The word rendered "a pillar," denotes generally any fixed object; and that rendered "salt," denotes also bitumen; and the plain significancy of the text would therefore seem to be, that she was slain by the fire and smoke, and sulphureous vapor; and her body being pervaded and enveloped by the bituminous and saline particles, lay there a stiffened and shapeless mass. The text appears to mean no more; but whether this mass may not have formed the nucleus of a mound, or even of a pillar of the same substance, forming as it were the unhonored grave of this unbelieving woman, is a question we are not called upon to consider. If the text required us to understand literally " a pillar of salt," we should know that it existed, and should think it likely that it exists still, and the question would be whether this, which our travellers have found, is that pillar or not. We should probably think not; for although its place is in what must have been the general locality of this visitation, yet if Zoar, to which the fugitives were escaping, has been correctly identified (as we doubt not) in Zuweirah, it is difficult to find this place for the pillar, upon the route thereto, from any spot which Sodom can be supposed to have occupied. Besides this pillar is upon a hill, whereas the visitation evidently befell Lot's wife in the plain. The following is the account of it which Lieut. Lynch gives : We cannot suppose that Lot's wife was a person so large that her dimensions equalled that of the column. Many think that the statue of Lot's wife was equal to the pillar of salt which the Bible speaks of, let that pillar be whatever it may, and whatever its size. They will not probably credit that this is the pillar; their preconceived notions have much to do with the matter; and they would have everybody-Americans and Syrians alikethink she was at once transformed into a column of very fine grained, beautifully white salt, about five feet or a few inches in height, and in circumference that of a middle-aged woman of the nineteenth century. Be that as it may, no two minds have, perhaps, formed exactly the same opinion on this matter who have not visited the spot. But here we are, around this immense column, and we find that it is really of solid rock-salt, one mass of crystallization. It is in the vicinity which is pointed out in the Bible in relation to the matter in question, and it appears to be the only one of its kind here; and the Arabs of the district, to [by] whom this pillar is pointed out as being that of Lot's wife, [must believe this to be] the identical pillar of salt to which the Bible has reference; the tradition having been handed down from each succeeding generation to To our astonishment, we saw, on the eastern side their children, as the Americans will hand down to of Usdum, one third the distance from its north ex- succeeding generations the tradition of Bunker's treme, a lofty, round pillar, standing apparently de- Hill Monument in Boston. My own opinion on the tached from the general mass, at the head of a deep, matter is, that Lot's wife having lingered behind, narrow, and abrupt chasm. We immediately pulled in disobedience to God's express command, given in for the shore, and Dr. Anderson and I went up in order to ensure her safety; that, while so lingerand examined it. The beach was a soft, slimy mud, ing, she became overwhelmed in the descending encrusted with salt, and a short distance from the fluid, and formed the model or foundation for this water, covered with saline fragments, and flakes of extraordinary column. If it be produced by combitumen. We found the pillar to be of solid salt, mon, by natural causes, it is but right to suppose capped with carbonate of lime, cylindrical in front, that others might be found of a similar description. and pyramidal behind. The upper or rounded part One is scarcely able to abandon the idea that i is about forty feet high, resting on a kind of oval stands here as a lasting memorial of God's punish pedestal, from forty to sixty feet above the level of ing a most deliberate act of disobedience, commit the sea. It slightly decreases in size upwards, ted at a time when he was about to show distin crumbles at the top, and is one entire mass of crys- guishing regard for the very person.-Pp. 201 tallization. A prop or buttress connects it with the 202. mountain behind, and the whole is covered with debris of a light stone color. Its peculiar shape is attributable to the action of the winter rains. The Arabs had told us, in vague terms, that there was to be found a pillar somewhere upon the shores of the sea, but their statements in all other respects had proved so unsatisfactory, that we could place no reliance on them. We were almost prepared to expect that this writer would shine among those who profess to have seen below the waters the ruins of the sub merged cities. Even he, however, does not go to this extent; but, instead, he treats us with a very elaborate picture of the great scene of their destruction, all the outlines of which are amusingly being ald be n-bee not. look, heart. likely Paris was some fifty years ago. Constantinople we can account for everything. Gases, vapors, is better known to us than Rome was then; and and electric fluids are familiar things. We not with Jerusalem, Cairo, Damascus, we have now long ago looked upon their spontaneous operations a far better acquaintance than we had twenty in nature with awe and wonder. But by and by years ago with Petersburgh, Lisbon, or Madrid. we grew bold in the presence of those awful powPalestine once afforded rich material for the players. We ventured to lay our hands upon their of the associative faculty upon the organ of won- manes, we vaulted upon their backs, and soon der; but presently came that great inconoclast, bowed down their terrible strength to our service. Dr. Robinson, of New York, who, by disproving Besides, this in which we have lived has been one thing and doubting another, has left but little in all respects a most extraordinary age. It has even there, in that cherished corner of the world, been full of all kinds of wonders-social, moral, for the wonder of which entire belief is a most historical, physical, scientific-so vast, so prodiessential condition. gious, as to render familiar to us, as matters of Wonder belongs to a time of ignorance, and we present interest and daily thought, results and say that the days of ignorance have passed. What facts, greater, intrinsically more strange, than any is there to wonder at? We know everything; that past ages, or any that distant countries offer and that which we understand ceases to be won- to our notice. This has tamed down the sense of derful. Look at the map of the world. There wonder. We can wonder at nothing; for nothis not a spot on which we can lay the finger whose ing is so wonderful as the things that have become inhabitants are not well known to us. They are our daily food. Even history is disenchanted. The differenced by small matters-dress, habits of life, strangest things have become comprehensible, posshades of color, climatic influences. Strip them sible, commonplace. The great conquerors of anof these, and we come by a swift process to our cient days have in our own times been surpassed. brothers-the sons of a common father-like our- The revolutions-the changes of past times-each selves in all that is essentially the man; moved one of which was a subject of curious speculation, by the same impulses, subject to the same pains have been exceeded in our own days. Subverand the same pleasures, subdued by the same sions, any one of which was erewhile good talk dreads, and nourished by the same hopes. The for a century, have been crowded upon us by the psychologist who dissects their souls finds them dozen within the space of a few weeks. If the all as like to one another, and all as like to us, sense of wonder in civilized man has not been t with as does the anatomist who explores their bodily frame. So with animals. All the most remarkable creatures of the world have been brought to us from the uttermost parts of the earth; and existences which to our grandfathers were all but fabulous, we now regard as familiar things. Our zoölogical gardens and menageries; our "Penny Magazines " and " Museums of Animat wholly destroyed, we cannot doubt that this age in which we live will be looked back upon by our children's children as more replete with wonders than any which the world's history has hitherto recorded. But what has all this to do with the Dead Sea? it may be asked. Much every way. Amid the general diswonderment of the world, we could feel ed Nature," have quite disenchanted this branch that at least the Dead Sea, with all its mysteries, of the world's life. Its strangest things have its horrors and marvels, was left to us. It bepassed from the realm of wonder; and the dis- came a sort of safety-valve for the fine old faculty covery of a really new beast, or bird, or reptile, -the source of so much innocent excitement, would now awaken out a languid interest in the which was smothered everywhere else under general mind. So of plants. Where are their heavy masses of dull facts and circumstances. wonders now? Within thirty years, thousands of plants from all parts of the globe, most of which had not even been heard of, and many of which were examined with wonder, have become the But gradually, and with aching hearts, we have seen this retreat cut off from us. One traveller after another has stripped off some one of the horrors which overhung its deeps, or rested on its well-known inmates of our stoves, our green- shores; and now at last it stands naked before us houses, and even our gardens. A morning's walk, -a monument, indeed, of God's wrath against or a short ride, will take any inhabitant of London the sins of man, but invested with none of the and other large towns among the most remarkable supernatural horrors ascribed to it, or exhibiting any of the features which are not the natural and inevitable effect of the peculiar condition into which it has been brought. As the books now before us bring all the questions with respect to this lake into their final forms of transmarine vegetation. Here are the palms and bananas of tropical climes, breathing an atmosphere by which you are almost suffocated; there a thousand whimsical shapes of the cacti and of the unearthly orchids meet the view; and here the singular pitcher-plants distil their waters. De- condition, they afford us a favorable opportunity part now, wonder-proof! Travel where you will, of stating the question as regards the past hisyou will see, you can see, nothing to astonish- tory of the Dead Sea horrors, and of showing nothing more wonderful than that which you have seen with your own eyes at home. And even in the phenomena of nature, the age of wonder has passed. We know everything; what has been really done by the expedition in advancement of our knowledge. In this we must rely chiefly upon our own resources; for the commander of the expedition helps us very little |