B^O The Destruction of Sodom and GomorraTi. 



Sodom and Gomorrah, and certain adjoining tribes, it is added 

 that the latter assembled in the Valley of Siddim which is the 

 Salt, (i. e. the Dead) Sea. It is therefore supposed that the lake 

 itself occupies the site of this once fertile valley ; and in order 

 to account for the change, Volney and others have imagined, 

 that the destruction of the cities was followed by a tremendous 

 earthquake, which sunk the whole country considerably below 

 its former level. 



But the sinking of a valley, besides that it is quite an unprece- 

 dented phenomenon in the extent assumed, would hardly ac- 

 count for the obliteration of the ancient bed of the Jordan, a 

 river which, though now absorbed in the Dead Sea, from 

 whence it is carried off by the mere influence of evaporation, 

 must, before that lake existed, have continued its course either 

 to the Red Sea or the Mediterranean. 



Now, if the Dead Sea had been formed by the cause assign- 

 ed, the waters I conceive would still continue to have discharg- 

 ed themselves by their old channel, unless, indeed, the subsi- 

 dence had been very considerable ; and then the course of the 

 Jordan, just north of the Dead Sea, would have presented, 

 what I believe no traveller, ancient or modern, has remarked, a 

 succession of rapids and cataracts, proportionate to the greatness 

 of the descent. 



That the Jordan really did discharge its waters at one period 

 into the Red Sea, is rendered extremely probable, by the late in- 

 teresting researches of Mr Burckhardt, who has been the first to 

 discover the existence of a great longitudinal valley, extending, 

 in nearly a straight line soutli-west, from the Dead Sea as far as 

 Akaba, at the extremity of the eastern branch of the Red Sea, 

 and continuous with that in which the Jordan flows from its 

 origin in the mountains near Damascus. It was probably 

 through this very valley that the trade between Jerusalem and 

 the Red Sea was in former times carried on. The caravans, 

 loaded at Ezengeber with the treasures of Ophir, might, after a 

 march of six or seven days, deposit their loads in the warehouses 

 of Solomon. 



This important discovery seems to place it beyond question, 

 that if there ever was a time at which the Jordan was not re- 

 ceived into a lake, which presented a surface considerable enough 

 to carry off its waters by evaporation, the latter would have 



