The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. 371 



been discharged by this valley into the Red Sea, and hence 

 every theory of the origin of the lake Asphaltitis must be re- 

 garded as imperfect, which does not account for the obliteration 

 of this channel. 



For my own part were I to offer a conjecture on the subject, 

 I should suppose, that the same volcano which overwhelmed, 

 with its ejected materials, the cities of the plain, threw out at 

 the same time a current of lava sufficiently considerable to stop 

 the course of the Jordan, the waters of which, unable to over- 

 come this barrier, accumulated in the plain of Siddim until they 

 converted it into the present lake. I do not know that any tra- 

 veller has observed what is the ordinary depth of the Dead Sea ; 

 but if we only imagine a current of lava, like that which, in 

 1667, proceeded from Etna, and flowed into the sea above 

 Catania, to have descended at right angles to the bed of the 

 River Jordan, the lake need not be supposed very shallow. 



Nor need we be startled at the magnitude of the effect that 

 we find to have resulted from a cause which, comparatively 

 speaking, appears so insignificant ; for, if the little rivulet, that 

 flows at the foot of the Puy de la Vache in Auvergne, was ade- 

 quate to produce the lake of Aidat, there seems no dispropor- 

 tion, in attributing to a river of the size of Jordan, to say no- 

 thing of the other streams, nowise inconsiderable, which must 

 have been affected by the same cause, the formation of a piece 

 of water, which, according to the best authorities, is, after all, not 

 more than twenty-four leagues in length, by six or seven in 

 breadth. 



That the volcanic eruption which destroyed the cities of the 

 Pentrapolis, was accompanied by the flowing of a stream of lava, 

 may be inferred, I think, from the very words of Scripture. 

 Thus when Eliphaz reminds Job of this catastrophe, he makes use 

 of the following expressions, according to Henderson's transla- 

 tion of the passage : 



" Hast thou observed the ancient tract 

 That was trodden by wicked mortals ? 

 Who were arrested on a sudden ; 

 Whose foundation is a molten flood. 

 Who said to God, depart from us, 

 What can Shaddai do to us ? 



Aa2 



