explain the error into which Macgregor has fallen when he writes, "My Map VII represents the Lake of Tiberias reduced by the pantograph to the scale of half-an-inch, after a photograph of the unpublished map of the Ordnance Survey, drawn up by Sir C Wilson and Major Anderson in 1866... The soundings are in feet after Van de Velde, who borrowed them from Lynch."[1]
Macgregor does not appear to be very familiar with bibliographic researches, for a little further on (p. 369, note 2) he relates at fall length how Lynch in spite of his desire was not able to make the least sounding in the Lake of Tiberias. He says besides as much of Molyneux (p. 422), who, he asserts, did not examine the lake, but passed at once southwards to begin the Jordan.
Naturally there resulted from these badly digested readings a whole series of confusions, of which the following extracts will give an example:—
Sometimes the lake would have a depth of 156 feet (Map No. VII, facing p. 338, "Rob Roy"; this is the number of Molyneux);
Sometimes of 165 feet (p. 369); this is Lynch's number;
Sometimes of 160 feet (p. 423?);
Sometimes lastly of 936 feet (p. 363) or of 156 fathoms (p. 424), which is the same thing.
This last number, so different from the others, is given only in the seventh edition of 1886: we will see further on the origin and the explanation of it.
In short, no traveller since Molyneux had made the least sounding in the Lake of Tiberias, when there appeared in 1883 the excellent work of Lortet,[2] who spent long days on this beautiful sheet of water, going over it and dredging it in every direction, in order to study its icthyological fauna. Without undertaking soundings properly so-called, this able naturalist in the course of his dredgings collected some interesting observations on the nature and the depth of the bottom which he explored: "The depth of the lake, which is inconsiderable, is on an average scarcely more than 50 to 60 metres; however, towards the middle of the large north basin I have several times dredged at depths of 250 metres without the line showing any sensible drift."
The passage from Macgregor, which I quoted above, based on a communication from Mr. Armstrong, seemed to come to the support of this assertion: the depth ascertained in 1886 is 936 feet.[3]
- ↑ Macgregor, "The Rob Roy on the Jordan," 7th edition, p. 287, London, 1886. I have not seen the first edition of this book; the only one I have had in my hands is the seventh, dated 1886: it is to this one that the numbers of pages refer, which I will indicate in the course of this article.
- ↑ T. Lortet, "Poissons et reptiles du lac de Tibériade" (Archives of the Natural History Museum of Lyons), t. iii, 1883. A preliminary note had already appeared in 1881 in the Report of the Academy of Sciences of Paris.
- ↑ Macgregor, loc. cit., p. 363. See also the note at the bottom of the page.
