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But besides this volcanic eruption, which brought about the destruction of these cities, it would appear that the very plain itself, in which they stood, was obliterated, and that a lake was formed in its stead. This is collected, not only from the apparent non-existence of the valley in which these cities were placed, but likewise from the express words of Scripture, where, in speaking of the wars which took place between the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah and certain adjoining tribes, it is added, that the latter assembled in the valley of Siddim, which is the Salt (i. e. the Dead) Sea. It is therefore supposed that the Lake itself occupies the site of this once fertile valley, and in order to account for the change, Volney and others have imagined, that the destruction of the cities was followed by a tremendous earthquake, which sunk the whole country considerably below its former level.

But the sinking of a valley, besides that it is quite an unprecedented phænomenon in the extent assumed, would hardly account for the obliteration of the antient bed of the Jordan, a river, which, though now absorbed in the Dead Sea, from whence it is carried off by the mere influence of evaporation, must, before that Lake existed, have continued its course either to the Red Sea or the Mediterranean.

Now if the Dead Sea had been formed by the cause assigned, the waters I conceive would still continue to have discharged themselves by their old channel, unless indeed the subsidence had been very considerable, and then the course of the Jordan, just north of the Dead Sea, would have presented, what I believe no traveller, antient or modern, has remarked, a succession of rapids and cataracts, proportionate to the greatness of the descent.

That the Jordan really did discharge its waters at one period into the Red Sea, is rendered extremely probable by the late interesting researches of Mr. Burckhardt, who has been the first to discover the existence of a great longitu

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dinal valley, extending, in nearly a straight line south west, from the Dead Sea as far as Akaba, at the extremity of the eastern branch of the Red Sea, and continuous with that, in which the Jordan flows from its origin in the mountains near Damascus.* It was probably through this very valley, that the trade between Jerusalem and the Red Sea was in former times carried on. The caravan, loaded at Ezengebe with the treasures of Ophir, might after a march of six or seven days deposit their loads in the warehouses of Solomon.

This important discovery seems to place it beyond question, that if there ever was a time at which the Jordan was not received into a lake, which presented a surface considerable enough to carry off its waters by evaporation,† the latter would have been discharged by this valley into the Red Sea, and hence every theory of the origin of the Lake Asphaltitis must be regarded as imperfect, which does not account for the obliteration of this channel.

For my own part were I to offer a conjecture on the subject, I should suppose, that the same volcano which overwhelmed with its ejected materials the cities of the plain, threw out at the same time a current of lava sufficiently considerable to stop the course of the Jordan, the waters of which, unable to overcome this barrier, accumulated in the plain of Siddim until they converted it into the present Jake. I do not know that any traveller has observed what is the ordinary depth of the Dead Sea, but if we only imagine a current of lava, like that which in 1667 proceeded from Etna, and flowed into the sea above Catania, to have

See the Map of the Dead Sea attached to this volume.

+ Several lakes are mentioned in Persia similarly circumstanced, and particularly one near Tabriz. See Morier's 2nd Journey in Persia. It is evident that every lake without an outlet, which is supplied with water from rivers flowing through a stratum impregnated with salt, must necessarily be strongly saline, so that there is no absolute necessity for supposing the ingredients contained in the waters of the Dead Sea to have arisen from volcanic exhalations,

This must necessarily have been the case, as (according to Maundrell and other travellers), the Dead Sea is enclosed on the east and west with exceeding high mountains.

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*

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descended at right angles to the bed of the River Jordan, the lake need not be supposed very shallow.*

Nor need we be startled at the magnitude of the effect, that we find to have resulted from a cause which, comparatively speaking, appears so insignificant; for, if the little rivulet, that flows at the foot of the Puy de la Vache in Auvergne, was adequate to produce the lake of Aidat, there seems no disproportion, in attributing to a river of the size of Jordan, to say nothing of the other streams, nowise inconsiderable which must have been affected by the same cause, the formation of a piece of water, which according to the best authorities, is, after all, not more than twentyfour leagues in length by six or seven in breadth.

That the volcanic eruption which destroyed the cities of the Pentapolis was accompanied by the flowing of a stream of lava, may be inferred, I think, from the very words of scripture. Thus when Eliphaz reminds Job of this catastrophe, he makes use of the following expressions, according to Henderson's translation of the passage:

Hast thou observed the ancient tract
That was trodden by wicked mortals?
Who were arrested on a sudden,
Whose foundation is a molten flood.
Who said to God: depart from us,

What can Shaddai do to us?

Though he had filled their houses with wealth;

(Far from me be the counsel of the wicked!)

The righteous beheld and rejoiced,

The innocent laughed them to scorn;
Surely their substance was carried away,
And their riches devoured by fire.

Job xxii. 15-20.

The same fact, Mr. Henderson thinks, is implied in the

* A recent traveller, Mr. Carne, speaks of the Dead Sea as so shallow, at east for some distance from its banks, that he was unable to swim in it. See is Letters from the East. London, 1826.