498 PILLAR OF SALT. [1848. 



pouring down into this narrow chasm, and reflected from the 

 smooth surface of the sea, and the barren mountain sides, 

 soon forced them to retire, however ; and on the 28th of 

 April, the surveys being ended, they all returned to camp. 



While occupied in the examination of the southern part of 

 the sea, a singular curiosity was discovered on the western 

 shore, at the foot of the salt mountain of Usdum, or Sodom, 

 and about two miles from the south end of the lake. This 

 is described by Lieutenant Lynch, as " a lofty, round pillar, 

 standing apparently detached from the general mass, at the 

 head of a deep, narrow, and abrupt chasm. We immediately 

 pulled in for the shore," says he, "and Dr. Anderson and I 

 went up and examined it. The beach was a soft, slimy 

 mud, encrusted with salt, and a short distance from the 

 water, covered with saline fragments and flakes of bitumen. 

 We found the pillar to be of solid salt, capped with carbonate 

 of lime, cylindrical in front, and pyramidal behind. The 

 upper or rounded part is about forty feet high, resting on a 

 kind of oval pedestal, from fofty to sixty feet above the level 

 of the sea. It slightly decreases in size upwards, crumbles 

 at the top, and is one entire mass of crystallization. A prop, 

 or buttress, connects it with the mountain behind, and the 

 whole is covered with debris of a light stone color. Its pecu- 

 liar shape is doubtless attributable to the action of the winter 

 rains. The Arabs had told us in vague terms that there was 

 to be found a pillar somewhere upon the shores of the sea; 

 but their statements in all other respects had proved so un- 

 satisfactory that we could place no reliance upon them."* 



It is very probable that this is the same pillar which 

 Josephus saw, and which he avers to be identical with that 

 into which Lot's wife was transformed;!' — but its position, 

 on the opposite side of the lake from Zoar, shows plainly 

 enough that his theory is incorrect. The supposed identity 

 rests merely on traditionary authority, though many, doubt- 

 less, have believed in it, who were ignorant of the topography 



* Narrative, p. 307. f Antiquities of the Jews, book 1, chap. 151 



