CHAP. XIII OUTLET FROM DEAD SEA 257 



terraces extend for some distance up the Wadi Arabah valley 

 from the southern end of the Dead Sea, and attain the height 

 of 1300 feet above its present level. HulP states that the 

 alluvial deposits slope down to the north, and this supports 

 the view that the ridge has undergone elevation. Anderson," 

 the geologist with the United States Expedition to the Dead 

 Sea, indeed, came to the conclusion that the ridge across the 

 Arabah had been raised. Moreover, in the geological map 

 prepared by Professor Hull,^ some old lake deposits are marked 

 on the south side of the watershed and only a few feet below 

 it. The account of these given in the text is not very precise, 

 and we cannot decide whether or not these deposits are 

 connected with the former discharge from the Jordan lake ; but 

 their existence is an important link in establishing a fresh-water 

 connection along this line. 



The opinion that the Dead Sea has always been an isolated 

 basin was held by Lartet ; ^ and, as far as concerns any 

 marine connection between it and the Red Sea, his arguments 

 are unanswerable. His conclusion that the rivers on the northern 

 side of the ridge of El Sate have always flowed from south to 

 north is, however, not so well established. The evidence he 

 adduces shows that the rivers flowed thus in the latter stages 

 of the history of the Dead Sea ; but this is scarcely open to 

 doubt. It is quite compatible with a discharge to the south 

 at an earlier period, and such has not yet been conclusively 

 disproved. 



In order that the fish from Equatorial Africa might 

 have entered Palestine by the route along the Wadi Arabah, 

 it is not necessary to assume that a river flowed the whole 

 way from the Jordan to the northern end of the Red Sea. 

 If fish from the south reached the lake proved by Hull 

 to have existed on the summit of the El Sate ridge, an 

 occasional flood or a slight earth - movement would have 

 enabled them to enter the streams that flowed northward into 



^ E. Hull, Memoir on the Geology and Geography of Arabia Petrcea, Palesti7ie, and 

 Adjoining Districts, p. 81. 



- H. J. Anderson, "Geological Reconnaissance of Part of the Holy Land," Offic. 

 Rep. U.S. Rxped. to Dead Sea and Jordan, part v. (Baltimore, 1852), p. 206. 



* E. Hull, op. cit. map ver. p. 138 ; text p. 87. 



"• L. Lartet, " Note sur la formation du bassin de la Mer Morte," Bull. Soc. Gdol. 

 France, s6r. 2, t. xxii. (1865), pp. 442-448; " Essai sur la Geologic de la Palestine" (1869), 

 pp. 236-237. 



S 



