343 
water level, and Mr George Armstrong has given me an inter- 
esting account of his ascent up the cliff (near Engedi) and has 
been good enough to lend me the specimens produced, (which 
Mr Etheridge has very kindly named) that he then collected on 
the Terraces. 
It will be at once evident that the water level in this 
mighty reservoir without an outlet would be dependent as much 
on evaporation as on the amount of inflow. In post-glacial 
times the latter would be in excess and the former at its 
minimum, as the inflow diminished and evaporation increased, 
with warmer atmospheric conditions there would be a tendency 
to reduce the water level, but this would be a slow process in 
such a reservoir, and would occupy a long lapse of time before 
desiccation to the extent of 1300 feet of depth was effected. 
As Mr Hudleston observes a succession of Dead Seas were all 
dried up in the Jordan Valley before the days of Abraham. 
In regard to the period of the volcanic outbursts that have 
been mentioned, Professor Hull says “ Recollecting the manner 
in which both in Moab and the Jaulan the basalt streams flow 
along depressions, hollowed out of cretaceous and eocene lime- 
stones, it is clear that the basaltic eruptions are of later date 
than the depressions themselves, and we shall probably not be 
in error if we assume that the earlier manifestations of volcanic 
action began during the epoch of the Pliocene. I have already 
referred to the evidence from hot springs and recent earthquake 
in the neighbourhood of Tiberias, that vulcanicity is not yet 
effete in these regions. This is equally if not more decidedly 
marked in the Zerka Main Ravine, towards the N.E. end of the 
Dead Sea, wherein the steaming sources of the Calirrhée Flow 
having a temperature of 142° Fahrt., much the same as those 
at Emmaus, near Tiberias, before referred to. Major Conder 
gives a graphic account of his ride down this ravine, a depth of 
some 1700 feet, and describes the outbreak of basalt that 
almost blocks it as resembling the high spoil heaps of an 
English coal mine.* 
*See Hath and Moab, by C. R. Conder, R.E., p, 149. 
‘ 
