Water of the Bead Sea. 317 



3c?/y, In the neighbourhood of both hot springs occur, 

 several of which are sulphurous, and evidently owe their 

 existence to volcanic action, as is proved by the co-existence 

 of tufa, lava, basalt, and other formations confessedly of 

 igneous origin. 



^thly^ In both cases the surrounding country at consider- 

 able distances exhibits a repetition on a small scale of similar 

 phenomena. Thus, in Palestine we have, according to the 

 observation of Lynch, hot sulphurous springs and very pro- 

 ductive bitumen pits, at the higher source of the Jordan, many 

 miles distant from the Sea of Galilee. Accordingly, we must ac- 

 knowledge the operation of an agency in the production of 

 salt and sulphurous waters together with bitumen, in many 

 remote parts of Palestine, an agency similar in all respects 

 to that which has produced like effects at the Dead Sea 

 and its immediate vicinity. The same observation applies 

 to the Great Salt Lake of America, for all its concomitant 

 and remarkable peculiarities reappear in localities far removed 

 from the lake itself. 



bthly, A very singular coincidence is, that each of these 

 gi'eat reservoirs of salt water receives a river derived from a 

 neighbouring fresh water lake. Thus the Jordan discharges 

 the superabundant waters of the Sea of Galilee into the Dead 

 Sea, while in like manner the Great Salt Lake receives a 

 considerable supply of fresh water from the Utah Lake. 



Qthly, Though the dead sea receives copious supplies of 

 fresh water from the Jordan and various other considerable 

 streams and rivulets, yet the freshening effect is only felt at 

 the mouths of those rivers and their immediate neighbourhood, 

 so far as the shallow water (due to the accumulation of detri- 

 tus carried down by their currents) extends. While shallow, 

 the water at first fresh, becomes brackish, and all traces of 

 freshness have disappeared when the deep parts of the lake 

 are reached. The same remark applies to the Great Salt 

 Lake^ which is upwards of seventy miles long and of great 

 depth. The Bear Eiver and the "Weber empty themselves 

 into it, and though both are large rivers, they scarcely pro- 

 duce any freshening effect except at the point of disembogue- 

 ment. It is of great importance to our inquiry to remark 



