1847.] SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATIONS. 4G3 



the desert plains, and the still fertile valleys, fanned but rarely 

 by the soft winds that blow 



" Sabean odors from the spicy shore 

 Of Araby the Blest," 



though new customs and new institutions have taken the 

 place of the old, the foot of the Gentile has not trampled out 

 the evidences that testify to this occurrence; and the scenes 

 and associations endeared to the Christian, though here an 1 

 there partially veiled in mystery, yet bask beneath the sain; 

 sunshine that lighted the nephew of Abraham in his flight 

 from that valley of wickedness and sin. The follower of Is- 

 lam continues, to this day, to hand down to his children the 

 legends of the stranger race that once inhabited the soil which 

 he now treads as its master; and the fierce Bedawi, as he 

 looks down from the o'ershadpwing heights upon the dank pool 

 lying inclosed between the barren hills of Judea and the stony 

 mountains of Arabia Petrea, utters the name of B&hr-Lut.* 

 From the earliest period, the peculiar position and char- 

 acter of the Salt, or Dead Sea, have attracted the notice of 

 men of learning and intelligence. In ancient times, Stephen 

 of Byzantium, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, Pliny and Josephus, 

 regarded it as an anomaly in the physical composition of the 

 world, while Justin and Tertullian pointed to it as affording 

 the most conclusive evidence in favor of the great truths of 

 Christianity. In later days, the scholars and savatis of 

 Europe and America have made repeated efforts to obtain 

 the most careful and accurate information in regard to this 

 singular body of water, by personal examination and observa- 

 tion ; and, in connection therewith, to ascertain by what mys- 

 terious agency, or in what mysterious manner, the judgment, of 

 God was carried into effect in the destruction of the cities of the 

 plain. Some of them have been partially successful, and others 

 have become disheartened almost at thecommencement of their 

 task. Pococke, Maundrell, Shaw, and Burckhardt, — Abbe 



* Sea of Lot. 



