CHAPTER III. 



(1.) Lake Asphaltites, or the Dead Sea. Surveys and Exploiations. — (2.) Di- 

 mensions. Depth. Analysis of the Water. — (3.) Physical Geography. — 

 (4.) Animal and Vegetable Life. — (5.) Probable Position of the Cities of the 

 Plain. Manner of their Destruction. — (G.) Return of the Exploring Party. 



(1.) Various names have been given to the Dead Sea. Among 

 the Jews, in earlier times, it was called the Salt Sea,* in 

 allusion to the saline properties of its waters ; and the Sea 

 of the Plain,f probably with reference to the unfortunate 

 catastrophe that occurred on the plain which it now occu- 

 pies. At a later day, the prophets designated it as the 

 East Sea,t in order to distinguish it from the Mediterranean, 

 or West Sea. Josephus, and the Greek and Roman writers 

 generally, call it Lacus Asphaltites, or the Asphaltic Lake, 

 from the quantities of asphaltum, in a soft or liquid state, 

 that float on its surface, and the inflammable bituminous 

 stones found upon its shores. Its modern appellation of the 

 "Dead Sea" (Blare Mortuum), is derived from the once 

 popular superstition, that the atmosphere above and around 

 it, like the fabled exhalations of the Upas tree, was tainted 

 with poison, and that to drink of its water was certain 

 death. § In Syria it is known as Al-Motanah, or Buhr Lilt, 



* Genesis, xiv, 3; Deuteronomy, iii, 17; Joshua, xv, 5. 



\ Deuteronomy, iii, 17; iv, 19. $ Ezekiel, xlvii, 18; Joel, ii, 20. 



^ "Reland, in his account of the Locus Asphaltites (Palcest. rol. I, p. 238), 

 after inserting copious extracts from Galen, concerning the properties and qual- 

 ity of the water, and its natural history, proceeds to account for the strange 

 fables that have prevailed with regard to its deadly influence by showing that 

 certain of the ancients confounded this lake with another, bearing the same 

 appellation of Asphaltites near Babylon; an 1 thai they attributed to it qualities 

 which properly belonged to the Babylonian waters. An account of the proper- 



