34a 



water level, and Mr George Armstrong has given me an inter- 

 esting account of his ascent up the cliff (near Engedi) and has 

 heen good enough to lend me the specimens produced, (which 

 Mr Etheridge has very kindly named) that he then collected on 

 the Terraces. 



It will he at once evident that the water level in this 

 mighty reservoir without an outlet would he 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 " Eecollecting 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 Calirrhoe 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. 



} ft 



