578 'THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



In 1581 Bunting, a North German professor and theologian, 

 published his "Itinerary of Holy Scripture," and in this the 

 Dead Sea and Lot legends continue to increase. He tells us that 

 the water of the sea " changes three times every day " ; that it 

 " spits forth fire " ; that it throws up " on high " great foul masses 

 which " burn like pitch " and " swim about like huge oxen " ; that 

 the statue of Lot's wife is still there, and that it shines like salt. 



In 1590 Christian Adrichom, a Dutch theologian, published 

 his famous work on sacred geography. He does not insist upon 

 the Dead Sea legends generally, but declares that the statue of 

 Lot's wife is still in existence, and on his map he gives a picture 

 of her standing at Usdum. 



Nor was it altogether safe to dissent from such beliefs. Just 

 as, under the papal sway, men of science had been severely pun- 

 ished for wrong views of the physical geography of the earth in 

 general, so, when Calvin decided to burn Servetus, he included in 

 his indictment for heresy a charge that Servetus, in his edition 

 of "Ptolemy," had made unorthodox statements regarding the 

 physical geography of Palestine.* 



So, too, Protestants and Catholics vied with each other in the 

 making of new myths. Thus, in his " Most Devout Journey," 

 published in 1608, Jean Zvallart, Mayor of Ath in Hainault, con- 

 fesses himself troubled by conflicting stories about the salt statue, 

 but declares himself sound in the faith that " some vestige of it 

 still remains," and makes up for his bit of freethinking by add- 

 ing a new mythical horror to the region "crocodiles," which, 

 with the serpents and the " foul odor of the sea," prevented his 

 visit to the salt mountains. 



In 1615 Father Jean Boucher publishes the first of many edi- 

 tions of his " Sacred Bouquet of the Holy Land." He depicts the 

 horrors of the Dead Sea in a number of striking antitheses, and 

 among these is the statement that it is made of mud rather than 

 of water, that it soils whatever is put into it, and so corrupts the 

 land about it that not a blade of grass grows in all that region. 



In the same spirit thirteen years later, the Protestant Christo- 

 pher Heidmann publishes his " Palsestina," in which he speaks of 



* For biblical engravings of Lot's wife transformed into a salt statue, etc., see Luther's 

 Bible, 1534, p. xi ; also the pictorial " Electoral Bible " ; also Merian's " Icones Biblicse " of 

 1625; also the frontispiece of the Luther Bible published at Nuremberg in 1708; also 

 Scheuchzer's " Kupfer Bibel," Augsburg, 1731, Tab. lxxx. For the account of the Dead 

 Sea serpent "Tyrus," etc., see " Le Grand Voyage de Hierusalem," Paris (1517 ?), p. xxi. 

 For De Salignac's assertion regarding the salt pillar and suggestion regarding the absorp- 

 tion of the Jordan before reaching the Dead Sea, see his " Itinerarium Sacra; Scripturae," 

 Magdeburg, 1593, 34 and 35. For Bunting, see his " Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae," 

 Magdeburg, 1 589, pp. 78, 79. For Adrichom's picture of the salt statue, see map, p. 38, 

 and text, p. 205, of his "Theatrum Terrae Sancta?," 1613. For Calvin and Servetus, see 

 Willis, " Servetus and Calvin," pp. 96 and 307 ; also the Servetus edition of Ptolemy. 



