504 ATMOSPHERE. [1848. 



Jic exposed to the effects of the atmosphere is bronzed by it 

 The shores of the sea, the stones on the beach and in the 

 torrent beds opening towards it, and the sides of the adjacent 

 mountains, are coated with saline incrustations.* This is 

 especially the case in the lower or southern part of the lake, 

 where the mountains are more abrupt, and the water much 

 shallower, — in general not averaging over thirteen feet in 

 depth. A hazy cloud, as if of heated vapor, hangs suspended 

 over the southern sea, and to the north there is a thin trans- 

 parent cloud, of a purple tinge, almost always to be seen, 

 except when driven away by the fierce sirocco. 



Popular credulity at one time went so far as to maintain 

 that the atmosphere in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, at cer- 

 tain seasons, was fatal to animal life. The mineral substan- 

 ces contained in its waters are certainly not poisonous, and 

 there is no vegetable decomposition to render the air impure. 

 The sulphur springs load the atmosphere with offensive odors, 

 but it is far from being pestilential. Strangers visiting the 

 sea complain of the drowsy feeling produced, and the oppres- 

 sive sensation about the head which they often experience. 

 But these effects are to be attributed as much to the heat of 

 the sun as to the character of the atmosphere ; and it is not 

 at all strange that those unused to the climate should be 

 attacked with fevers, occasioned by exposure in a place where 

 its evils are enhanced in a tenfold degree. 



Without a more careful and accurate analysis of the 

 waters of the Dead Sea, and its tributaries, than has yet 

 been made, it would be difficult to account satisfactorily for 

 the existence of the saline substances found in the former ; 

 but there is every reason to believe, that the Jordan, and the 

 other streams that flow into it, bring down a great proportion 

 of them, and that the large deposit now there is the gradual 

 accumulation of asfes. This idea seems to derive strength 

 from the fact, that this deposit is much the greatest at the 



* Stones lying exposed on the shores of the Jordan, twenty miles above the 

 Dead Sea, are often coated with salt; hut this is probably a de|x>sition of the 

 atmosphere carried thither by the simooms which blow in this direction 



