592 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



" Abraham, the friend of God, having come here one day with 

 his mule to buy salt, the salt-workers impudently told him that 

 they had no salt to sell, whereupon the patriarch said: 'Your 

 words are true ; you have no salt to sell,' and instantly the salt 

 of this whole region was transformed into stone, or rather into 

 a salt which has lost its savor." 



Nothing could be more sure than this story to throw light into 

 the mental and moral process by which the salt pillar myth was 

 originally created. 



In the years 1864 and 1865 came an expedition on a much more 

 imposing scale that of the Due de Luynes. His knowledge of 

 archaeology and his wealth were freely devoted to working the 

 mine which Lynch had opened, and, taking with him an iron ves- 

 sel and several savants, he devoted himself especially to finding 

 the cities of the Dead Sea, and to giving less vague accounts of 

 them than those of De Saulcy. But he was disappointed, and 

 honest enough to confess his disappointment. So vanished one of 

 the most cherished parts of the legend. 



But worse remained behind. In the orthodox duke's company 

 was an acute geologist, Monsieur Lartet, who in due time made 

 an elaborate report, which let a flood of light in upon the whole 

 region. 



The Abbe" Richard had been rejoicing the orthodox heart of 

 France by exhibiting some prehistoric flint implements as the 

 knives which Joshua had made for circumcision. By a truthful 

 statement Monsieur Lartet set all France laughing at him, and 

 then turned to the geology of the Dead Sea basin. While he con- 

 ceded that man may have seen some volcanic crisis there toward 

 its end, and may have preserved a vivid remembrance of the vapor 

 then rising, his whole argument showed irresistibly that all the 

 phenomena of the region are due to natural causes, and that so far 

 from a sudden rising of the lake above the valley within historic 

 times, it has been for ages steadily subsiding. 



Since Balaam was called by Balak to curse his enemies, and 

 " blessed them altogether," there has never been a more unexpected 

 tribute to truth. 



Even the salt pillar at Usdum, as depicted in Lynch's book, 

 aided to undermine the myth among thinking men, for the back- 

 ground of the picture showed them other pillars of salt in process 

 of formation ; and the ultimate result of all these expeditions of 

 the century was to spread an atmosphere in which myth and legend 

 became more and more attenuated. 



To sum up the main points in this work of the nineteenth cent- 

 ury, Seetzen, Robinson, and others had found that a human being 

 could traverse the lake without being killed by hellish smoke ; 

 that the water gave forth no odors : that the fruits of the region 



