444 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



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 in- 

 habitants 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 supple- 

 mented in Gage's translation with additions ; Reclus, " Nouvelle Geographie 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 Saulcy, 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 zoology of the Dead Sea, as to entire absence of life in it, see all earlier trav- 

 elers ; 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 Geographie," 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 su- 

 perstition that birds attempting to fly over the sea are suffocated. See Lenormant, " His- 

 toire ancienne de l'Orient," edition of 1888, vol. vi, p. 112. For the absorption and adop- 

 tion 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 medireval myths. 

 For very curious examples of these, see Baierus, " De Excidio Sodomae," Halle, 1705, 

 passim. 



