506 geology. [1848 



all vegetation, and cast their dark shadows, from an altitude 

 of between two and three thousand feet, far down upon the 

 dark and dreary pool imbosomed amid those calcined moun- 

 tains — from year to year, from age to age, bearing testimony 

 to the truth, that although the judgments of the Almighty 

 may be delayed for long, they are nevertheless sure and certain. 



The eastern shore is evidently of volcanic formation. 

 Trap, tufa, granite, gneiss, dolomite, and pieces of scoriated 

 lava, are found in considerable abundance. The prevalent 

 formation is brown limestone lying in horizontal strata above 

 yellow sand-stone. On the western shore, no sand-stone has 

 been discovered, but the mountains there are mainly compos- 

 ed of limestone. The rocks are, of course, much discolored 

 by the substances deposited by the atmosphere. In the 

 neighborhood of the sulphur springs, they are unusually dark 

 and gloomy, and elsewhere, particularly along the borders of 

 the southern sea, they are whitened with the incrustations of 

 salt. The peninsula before mentioned is a bold and rocky 

 promontory, from forty to sixty feet in average height, and 

 at its northern extremity or point attaining an elevation of 

 near one hundred feet: it is composed of limestone, with 

 loose calcareous marl, and soft chalky flints scattered along 

 the shore. Mud flats, sandy plains or deltas, at the openings 

 of the ravines and gorges, which support a scanty vegetation 

 alternating with rocky precipices, and strips of low and marshy 

 or broken ground, covered with sand and gravel or minute 

 angular fragments of flint, or pebbles of bituminous lime- 

 stone, form the immediate shore, or beach, of the lake. 



On the east the shore is very bold and abrupt, the depth 

 of water in the northern sea averaging about ninety fathoms 

 within a quarter of a mile of the beetling cliffs ; anil if the 

 Jordan once continued its course through the vale of Siddim 

 its channel was probably on this side of the lake. The 

 bottom of the northern sea is composed of brown or bine mud, 

 sometimes but not usually hard, of sand and crystals of salt. 

 Mud and crystals of salt are found all along the bottom of the 

 lake, through the channel, and in the southern sea. In the 



