514 EXAMINATIONS OF LIEUTENANT LYNCH. [1S48. 



plain upon which the cities stood, and which was covered by 

 the overflow of water from the upper sea. The fertility, too, 

 mentioned by Mr. Wylie, as being characteristic of the south- 

 eastern plain, is hardly consistent with the facts obtained by 

 the American Expedition. 



Lieutenant Lynch remarks that the mountains on all sides 

 appear much older than the sea, and that the torrents', par- 

 ticularly those pouring into the upper lake, plunge down 

 abruptly. His inference from the facts and appearances 

 before him was, that the entire chasm was a sunken plain, 

 and that the depression was greatest at the northern end. 

 In summing up the conclusions at which he arrived, he says : — 

 " The inference from the Bible, that this entire chasm was a 

 plain sunk and ' overivhelmed 1 by the wrath of God, seems to 

 be sustained by the extraordinary character of our soundings. 

 The bottom of this sea consists of two submerged plains, an 

 elevated and a depressed one; the last averaging thirteen, 

 and the former about thirteen hundred feet below the sur- 

 face. Through the northern, and largest and deepest one, in 

 a line corresponding with the bed of the Jordan, is a ravine, 

 which again seems to correspond with the Wady-el-Jeib, or 

 ravine w r ithin a ravine, at the south end of the sea. 



"Between the Jabok and this sea, we unexpectedly found 

 a sudden break-down in the bed of the Jordan. If there be a 

 similar break in the water courses to the south of the sea, 

 accompanied with like volcanic characters, there can scarce 

 be a doubt that the whole Ghor has sunk from some extraor- 

 dinary convulsion ; preceded, most probably, by an eruption 

 of fire, and a general conflagration of the bitumen which 

 abounded in the plain. I shall ever regret that we were not 

 authorized to explore the southern Ghor to the Red Sea. 



" All our observations have impressed me forcibly with the 

 conviction, that the mountains are older than the sea. Had 

 their relative levels been the same at first, the torrents would 

 have worn their beds in a gradual and correlative slope ; — 

 whereas, in the northern section, the part supposed to have 

 been so deeply engulfed, although a soft, bituminous limostono 



