occasioned by Volcanic Agency. S6Y 



Clouds of smoke are often observed to issue from the lake, 

 and new crevices to be formed upon its banks. If conjectures 

 in such cases were not too liable to error, we might suspect, that 

 the whole valley has been formed only by a violent sinking of a 

 country which formerly poured the Jordan into the Mediterra- 

 nean. It appears certain, at least, that the catastrophe of five 

 cities destroyed by fire, must have been occasioned by the erup- 

 tion of a volcano then burning. Strabo expressly says, " that 

 the tradition of the inhabitants of the country (that is of the 

 Jews themselves) was, that formerly the valley of the lake was 

 peopled by thirteen flourishing cities, and that they were swal- 

 lowed up by a volcano." This account seems to be confirmed 

 by the quantities of ruins still found by travellers on the west* 

 ern border. 



" The eruptions themselves have ceased long since, but the 

 effects, which usually succeed them, still continue to be felt at 

 intervals in this country. The coast in general is subject to 

 earthquakes, and history notices several, which have changed 

 the face of Antioch, Laodicea, Tripoli, Berytus, Tyre, and Si- 

 don. In our time, in the year 1759, there happened one which 

 caused the greatest ravages. It is said to have destroyed, in 

 the valley of Balbec, upwards of twenty thousand persons ; a 

 loss which has never been repaired. For three months the 

 shock of it terrified the inhabitants of Lebanon so much, as to 

 make them abandon their houses, and dwell under tents."" 



In addition to these remarks of Volney's, a recent traveller, 

 Mr Legh, states, that, on the south-east side of the Dead Sea, 

 on the right of the road that leads to Karrac, red and brown 

 hornstone porphyry, in the latter of which the felspar is much 

 decomposed, syenite, breccia, and a heavy black amygdaloid, 

 containing white specks, apparently of zeolite, are the prevailing 

 rocks. Not far from Shubac, (near the spot marked in D'An- 

 ville''s map, Patriarchatus Hierosolymitanus), where there were 

 formerly copper mines, he observed portions of scoriae. Near the 

 fortress of Shubao, on the left, are two volcanic craters ; on the 

 right, one. 



The Roman road on the same side is formed of pieces of lava. 

 Masses of volcanic rock also occur in the valley of EUasar. 



