by Christians, on the subject of this sheet of water, than the broad ocean has ever supplied, to stir the landman’s heart. Its dimensions, in the first place, have been set down, with remarkable discrepancy. Pliny, lib. v. 15, says, Longitudine excedit centum M. passuum, latitudine maxima xxv., implet, minima sex, making the length one hundred miles, and the breadth, from twenty-five miles, to six. Josephus estimates its length at five hundred and eighty furlongs, from the mouth of the Jordan, to the town of Segor, at the opposite end; and its greatest breadth one hundred and fifty furlongs. The Rev. Dr. William Jenks, of whose learning and labors a sexton of the old school may be permitted to speak, with great respect, sets down the length, in his New Gazetteer of the Bible, appended to his Explanatory Bible Atlas, of 1847, at thirty-nine miles, and its greatest breadth at nine. Carne, in his Letters from the East, says the length is sixty miles, and the breadth from eight to ten. Stephens states the length to be thirty miles, in his Incidents of Travel.
The origin of this lake was ascribed to the submersion of the valley of Siddim, where the cities stood, which were destroyed, in the conflagration of Sodom and Gomorrah. This tremendous gallimaufry or hotch potch, produced, as some suppose, an intolerable stench, and impregnated the waters with salt, sulphur, and bitumen.
Pliny, in the passage quoted above—observes—Nullum corpus animalium recipit—no animal can live in it. Speaking of these waters, Dr. Jenks remarks—“no animals exist in them.” On the other hand, Dr. Pococke, on the authority of a monk, tells us, that fish have been caught in the Dead Sea. Per contra again, Mr. Volney affirms, that it contains neither animal nor vegetable life. M. Chateaubriand, on the other hand, who visited the Dead Sea, in 1807, remarks—“About midnight, I heard a noise upon the lake, and was told by the Bethlehemites, who accompanied me, that it proceeded from legions of small fish, which come out, and leap upon the shore.” The monks of St. Saba assured Dr. Shaw, as he states in his travels, that they had seen fish caught there.
In the passage quoted from Pliny, he says—Tauri camelique fluitant. Inde fama nihil in eo mergi—bulls and camels float upon this lake: hence the notion, that nothing will sink in it. It is true, that the water of the Dead Sea is specifically heavier than any other, owing to the great quantity of salt, sulphur, and bitumen; but Dr. Pococke found not the slightest difficulty, in swimming and diving in the lake. Sir Thomas Browne, treating of this, in his Pseudodoxia, vol. iii., p. 341, London, 1835, observes—“As for the story, men deliver it variously. Some, I fear too largely, as Pliny, who affirmeth that bricks will swim therein. Mandevil goeth further, that iron swimmeth and feathers sink.” “But,” continueth Sir Thomas, “Andrew Thevet, in his Cosmography, doth ocularly overthrow it, for he affirmeth he saw an ass with his saddle cast therein and drowned.”
Another legend is equally absurd, that birds, attempting to fly over the lake, fall, stifled by its horrible vapors. “It is very common,” says Volney, “to see swallows skimming its surface, and dipping for the water, necessary to build their nests.” Mr. Stephens, in his Incidents of Travel, vol. ii. chap. 15, gives an interesting account of the Dead Sea, and says—“I saw a flock of gulls floating quietly on its bosom.”
It has been roundly asserted, that, in very clear weather, the ruins of the cities, destroyed by the conflagration, are visible beneath the waters. Josephus soberly avers, that a smoke constantly arose from the lake, whose waters changed their color three times daily.
The waters of Jordan and of the brooks Kishon, Jabbok, and Arnon, flow into the Dead Sea, yet produce no perceptible rise of its surface. The influx from these mountain streams is considerable. Hence another legend, to account for this mystery—a subterraneous communication with the Mediterranean—which would surely make the matter worse, for Dr. Jenks and other writers state, that “the waters lie in a deep caldron, many hundred feet below the Mediterranean.” Evaporation, which is said to be very great, explains the mystery entirely. At the rising of the sun, dense fogs cover the lake.
Chateaubriand says—“The first thing I did, on alighting, was to walk into the lake, up to my knees, and taste the water. I found it impossible to keep it in my mouth. It far exceeds that of the sea, in saltness, and produces, upon the lips, the effect of a strong solution of alum. Before my boots were completely dry, they were covered with salt; our clothes, our hats, our hands were, in less than three hours, impregnated with this mineral.” “The origin of this mineral,” says Volney, “is easy to be discovered, for, on the southwest shore, are mines of fossil salt. They are situated, in the sides of the mountains, which extend along the border; and, for time immemorial, have supplied the neighboring Arabs, and even the city of Jerusalem.”
“Whoever,” says Mr. Carne, in his Letters from the East, “has seen the Dead Sea, will have its aspect impressed upon his memory. It is, in truth, a gloomy and fearful spectacle. The precipices, in general, descend abruptly to the lake, and, on account of their height, it is seldom agitated by the winds. Its shores are not visited, by any footstep, save that of the wild Arab, and he holds it in superstitious dread. On some parts of the rocks, there is a thick, sulphureous incrustation, and, in their steep descents, there are several deep caverns, where the benighted Bedouin sometimes finds a home. The sadness of the grave was on it and around it, and the silence also. However vivid the feelings are, on arriving on its shores, they subside, after a time, into languor and uneasiness; and you long, if it were possible, to see a tempest wake on its bosom, to give sound and life to the scene.”
“If we adopt,” says Chateaubriand, “the idea of Professor Michaelis, and the learned Busching, in his memoir on the Dead Sea, physics may be admitted, to explain the catastrophe of the guilty cities, without offence to religion. Sodom was built upon a mine of bitumen, as we know from the testimony of Moses and Josephus, who speak concerning wells of bitumen, in the valley of Siddim. Lightning kindled the combustible mass, and the cities sank in the subterranean conflagration.” In Calmet’s Dictionary of the Bible, vol. iii., article Lot, it is stated, that the Mahometans have added many circumstances to his history. They assert, that the angel Gabriel pried up the devoted cities so near to Heaven, that the angels actually heard the sound of the trumpets and horns, and even the yelping of puppies, in Sodom and Gomorrah: and that Gabriel then let the whole concern go with a terrible crash. Upon this, Calmet remarks—“Romantic as this account appears, it preserves traces of an earthquake and a volcano, which were, in all probability, the natural secondary cause of the overthrow of Sodom, and of the formation of the Dead Sea.” Lot’s wife in my next.
No. XXXVI.
The conversion of Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt has given rise to as much learned discussion, as the question, so zealously agitated, between Barcephas and others, whether the forbidden fruit were an apple or a fig. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. Gen. xix. 26. Very little account seems to have been made of this matter, at the time. The whole story, and without note or comment, is told in these fifteen words. It would have seemed friendly, and natural, and proper, for Abraham to have said a few words of comfort to Lot, on this sudden and singular bereavement; but, instead of this, we are told, in the following verse, that Abraham got up, next morning, and looked, very philosophically, at the smoke, which went up from the cities of the plain, like the smoke of a furnace. This neglect of Lot’s wife is, too frequently, a wife’s lot. Some of the learned have been sorely perplexed, to understand, why this unfortunate lady has not long since melted away, under the influence of the rains; for a considerable quantity of water has fallen, since the destruction of Sodom. But they seem to forget, that there is no measure of limitation, for a miracle; and that the salt might have been purposely designed, like caoutchouc, to resist the action of water. The departure from Sodom was sudden, to be sure; but the lady was clothed, in some sort, doubtless; yet nothing has been said, by travellers, about her drapery, and whether that also was converted into salt, or cast off, by the mere
