1848.] MODERN THEORY. 511 



much smaller dimensions than the present, previously existed 

 in the valley of Siddim. This supposition, he insists, is un- 

 avoidable. "The bed of the Jordan," he says, "is so far 

 below the level of El-Arabah and the Red Sea, that it is 

 impossible, in the nature of things, it ever could have flowed 

 through that valley. And this, we conceive, implies the 

 existence of a lake. But though we are obliged to suppose 

 that a lake existed, we are not obliged to suppose that it was 

 as large as it is at present. It is natural to think that so 

 terrible a catastrophe happening on its shores would make 

 some alteration in its dimensions, and most probably enlarge 

 them. And if we examine the lake, we find that it is, in 

 fact, composed of two lakes, an upper and a lower — the 

 former being forty miles long, and the latter ten, assuming 

 the whole at fifty. The division between the two lakes is 

 strongly marked. On the shores the mountains approach, so 

 as almost to separate them from above ; and in the bottom a 

 high ridge of ground runs across from shore to shore, so as 

 almost to divide them below the surface. The water which 

 covers this ridge is seldom more than two feet in depth, and 

 the ford which the bottom offers, may be crossed by the 

 Arabs at all seasons.* This ford is about three hours (nine 

 miles) from the extremity of the lake, on the authority of 

 Burckhardt. Now, if we suppose that the lake, in former 

 times, terminated at this point, as the form of the mountains 

 and the nature of the bottom seem to indicate, then, between 

 the extremity of the lake, and the low range of hills which 

 bound the valley of the Jordan towards the south, and from 

 the head of El-Arabah, we have a level and fertile plain of 

 seventeen miles in length, on which we suppose the cities 



* The soundings made under the direction nf Lieutenant Lynch have settles 

 the fact that there is actually no such ford in existence. "We ascertained," 

 says the Narrative (p. 303) ; " that there is no ford as laid down in the map of 

 Messrs. Robinson and Smith. One of the Arabs said that there was once a ford 

 here, but all the others denied it." At the narrowest part of the lake, where 

 the mountains approach nearest to each other, the water is from two to three 

 fathoms deep most of the way across ; and yet, according to Burckhardt, this ia 

 the locality of the supposed ford. 



