length and nine miles in width; it lies in a very deep fissure extending north and south, and its surface is about thirteen hundred feet below that of the Mediterranean. It has, therefore, no outlet, and is the receptacle for the waters of the whole system to which it belongs, including those collected by the Sea of Galilee and brought down thence by the river Jordan.
It certainly—or, at least, the larger part of it—ranks geologically among the oldest lakes on earth. In a broad sense the region is volcanic: on its shore are evidences of volcanic action which must, from the earliest period, have aroused wonder and fear, and stimulated the myth-making tendency to account for them. On the eastern side are impressive mountain-masses which have been thrown up from old volcanic vents; mineral and hot springs abound, some of them spreading sulphurous odors; earthquakes have been frequent, and from time to time these cast up masses of bitumen; concretions of sulphur and large formations of salt constantly appear.
The water which comes from the springs or oozes through the salt layers upon its shores constantly brings in various salts in solution, and, being rapidly evaporated under the hot sun and dry wind, there has been left, in the bed of the lake, a strong brine heavily charged with the usual chlorides and bromides—a sort of bitter "mother liquor." This fluid has become so dense as to have a remarkable power of supporting the human body; is of an acrid and nauseating bitterness; and by ordinary eyes no evidence of life is seen in it.
Thus it was that in the lake itself, and in its surrounding shores, there was enough to make the generation of explanatory myths on a large scale inevitable.
The main northern part of the lake is very deep, the plummet having shown an abyss of thirteen hundred feet, but the southern end is shallow and in places marshy.
The system of which it forms a part shows a likeness to that in South America, of which the mountain lake Titicaca is the main feature; as a receptacle for surplus waters, only rendering them by evaporation, it resembles the Caspian and many other seas; as a sort of evaporating dish for the leachings of salt rock, and consequently holding a body of water unfit to support the higher forms of animal life, it resembles, among others, the Median lake of Urumiah; as a deposit of bitumen, it resembles the pitch lakes of Trinidad.
Striking, then, as was the Dead Sea in its appearance to pre-scientific man, there is nothing in it of extraordinary difficulty to the modern geologist or geographer.[1]
- ↑ For modern views of the Dead Sea, see the Rev. Edward Robinson, D. D., "Biblical Researches," various editions; Lynch's "Exploring Expedition"; De Sauley, "Voyage
