510 SUPPOSED SITE OF THE RUINS. [1848 



The supposed site of the ruins has frequently been pointed 

 out to travellers by the % old inhabitants, though the former 

 could never discover them. Costigan fancied he had found 

 the ruins of Gomorrah on the plain at the foot of Wa ly 

 Mubughghik, five or six miles north of the salt mountain of 

 Usdum, and on the western shore of the lake; but Lieuten- 

 ant Lynch shows that they were merely the remains of an 

 old aqueduct constructed for purposes of irrigation.* It is 

 far from impossible that the ruins of the doomed cities may 

 actually have been seen at a remote day, and that they have 

 been gradually covered up by the accumulated deposits 

 collected at the southern end of the lake ; but the probability 

 is, that the alleged remains were the fragments of some of 

 the fortifications or other structures, erected by the Jews, or, 

 at a later day, by the Romans, on the banks of the lake. 



History and tradition, both sacred and profane, dating 

 back for thousands of years, concur in the one great fact, 

 that the Dead Sea, or the Sea of the Plain, covers the spot 

 once occupied by the guilty cities. Until quite recently, 

 too, it has been pretty generally conceded, that the Jordan 

 originally continued its course along the fertile vale of Siddim, 

 after leaving the valley of El-Ghor, and then passed through 

 the Wady-el-Arabah, whose general features have a striking 

 resemblance to those of the former, to the Gulf of Akabah. 

 But the examinations made by Dr. Robinson and the Count 

 de Bertou — the latter of whom travelled through the Wady- 

 el-Arabah — go to show that the level of the Dead Sea and the 

 bed of the Jordan is below that of the Red Sea, and that the 

 Wady-el-Arabah rises gradually as far south as Wady Talh, 

 the dividing ridge. This would indicate that a lake, or sea, 

 without any outlet, has always existed where the Dead Sea 

 now is; and that opinion has latterly been gaining "round. 



An able and intelligent writert has recently examined this 



subject with a great deal of care, and collated all the facts 



and circumstances favoring the opinion which he lias adopted 



as the result of his investigations, — that a lake, though of 



♦ Narrative, p. 304- t Rev. J. A. Wylie. 



