At a very early period, myths and legends, many and long, grew up to explain features then so incomprehensible.
As the myth and legend grew up among the Greeks of a refusal of hospitality to Zeus and Hermes by the village in Phrygia, and the consequent sinking of that beautiful region with its inhabitants beneath a lake and morass, so there came a belief in a similiar offense by the people of the beautiful valley of Siddim, and the consequent sinking of that valley with its inhabitants beneath the waters of the Dead Sea. Very similar to the accounts of the saving of Philemon and Baucis are those of the saving of Lot and his family.
But the myth-making and miracle-mongering by no means ceased in ancient times; they continued to grow through the me-
autour de la Mer Morte"; Stanley's "Palestine and Syria"; Schaff's "Through Bible Lands"; and other travelers hereafter quoted. For good "photogravures" showing the character of the whole region, see the portfolio forming part of De Luynes's monumental "Voyage d'Exploration." For geographical summaries, see Reclus, "La Terre," Paris, 1870, pp. 832-848; Ritter, "Erdkunde," volumes devoted to Palestine and especially as supplemented in Gage's translation with additions; Reclus, "Nouvelle Géographie Universelle," ix, 736, where a small map is given presenting difference in depth between the two ends of the lake, of which so much was made theologically before Lartet. For still better maps, see De Sauley, and especially De Luynes, "Voyage d'Exploration" (portfolio). For very interesting panoramic views, see last edition of Canon Tristram's "Land of Israel," p. 635. For the geology, see Lartet, in his reports to the French Geographical Society, and especially in vol. iii of De Luynes's work, where there is an admirable geological map with sections, etc.; also Ritter; also Sir J. W. Dawson's "Egypt and Syria," published by the Religious Tract Society; also Rev. Cunningham Geikie, D. D., "Geology of Palestine": and for pictures showing salt formation, Tristram, as above. For the meteorology, see Vignes, "Report to De Luynes," pp. 65 et seq. For chemistry of the Dead Sea, see as above, and Terreil's report, given in Gage's Ritter, vol. iii, Appendix 2, and tables in De Luynes's third volume. For zöology of the Dead Sea, as to entire absence of life in it, see all earlier travelers; as to presence of lower forms of life, see Ehrenberg's microscopic examinations in Gage's Ritter. See also reports in third volume of De Luynes. For botany of the Dead Sea, and especially regarding "apples of Sodom," see Dr. Lortet's "Palestine," p. 412; also Reclus, "Nouvelle Géographie," ix, 737. Also for photographic representations of them, see portfolio forming part of De Luynes's work, plate 27. On Strabo's very perfect description, etc., see lib. xvi, II, 44; also Fallmerayer, "Werke," pp. 177, 178. For names and positions of a large number of salt lakes in various parts of the world more or less resembling the Dead Sea, see De Luynes, iii, 242 et seq. For Trinidad "pitch-lakes," found by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1595, see Langegg, "El Dorado," Part I, p. 103, and Part II, p. 101; also Reclus, Ritter, et al. For the general subject, see Schenkel, "Bible Lexicon," sub voc. "Todtes Meer," an excellent summary. The description of the Dead Sea in Lenormant's great history is utterly unworthy of him, and must have been thrown together from old notes after his death. It is amazing to see in such a work the old superstition that birds attempting to fly over the sea are suffocated. See Lenormant, "Histoire ancienne de l'Orient," edition of 1888, vol. vi, p. 112. For the absorption and adoption of foreign myths and legends by the Jews, see Baring-Gould, "Myths," etc., p. 390. For the views of Greeks and Romans, see especially Tacitus, "History," Book V, Pliny, and Strabo, in whose remarks are the germs of many of the mediæval myths. For very curious examples of these, see Baierus, "De Excidio Sodomae," Halle, 1705, passim.
