NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 449 



lein, Mukadassi. Speaking of the town of Segor, near the salt 

 region, he says that the proper translation of its name is " Hell " ; 

 and of the lake he says, " Its waters are hot, even as though the 

 place stood over hell-fire." 



In the crusading period, immediately following, all the legends 

 hurst forth more brilliantly than ever. 



The first of these new travelers who makes careful statements 

 is Fulk of Chartres, who in 1100 accompanied King Baldwin to 

 the Dead Sea and saw many wonders ; but, though he visited the 

 salt region of Usdum, he makes no mention of the salt pillar : evi- 

 dently he had fallen on evil times ; the older statues had probably 

 been washed away, and no new one had happened to be washed 

 out of the rocks just at that period. 



But his misfortune was more than made up by the triumphant 

 experience of a far more famous traveler, half a century later 

 Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela. 



Rabbi Benjamin finds new evidences of miracle in the Dead 

 Sea, and develops to a still higher point the myth and legend of 

 the salt statue of Lot's wife, enriching the world with the state- 

 ment that it was steadily and miraculously renewed ; that, though 

 the cattle of the region licked its surface, it never grew smaller. 

 Again a thrill of joy went through the monasteries and pulpits 

 of Christendom at this increasing "evidence of the truth of 

 Scripture." 



Toward the end of the thirteenth century there appeared in 

 Palestine a traveler superior to most before or since Count 

 Burchard, monk of Mount Sion. He had the advantage of know- 

 ing something of Arabic, and his writings show him to have been 

 observant and thoughtful. No statue of Lot's wife appears to 

 have been washed clean of the salt rock during his visit, but he 

 takes it for granted that the Dead Sea is " the mouth of hell," and 

 that the vapor rising from it is the smoke from Satan's furnaces. 



These ideas seem to have become part of the common stock, 

 for Ernoul, who traveled to the Dead Sea during the same century, 

 always speaks of it as the " Sea of Devils." 



Near the beginning of the fourteenth century came a traveler 

 of far wider influence Sir John Maundeville. 



In the various editions of the book ascribed to him, myths and 

 legends of the Dead Sea and of the pillar of salt old and new 

 burst forth into wonderful luxuriance. He brings news of a 

 woman changed into an enormous dragon ; of a monster who be- 

 sought a monk to cast out the devil from him, and who had horns 

 on his head, which horns were shown Maundeville by the monk 



Bede, see his " De Locis Sanctis " in Tobler's " Itinera," i, p. 228. For an admirable 

 statement of the mediaeval theological view of scientific research, see Eicken, " Geschichte, 

 etc., der Mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung," Stuttgart, 18S7, chap. vi. 

 vol. xxxvi. 29 



