CANALS TO THE DEAD SEA. 691 



an impracticable undertaking. Although, therefore, we have nc 

 reason to believe it possible to open a navigable channel to India 

 by way of the Dead Sea, there is not much doubt that the basin 

 of the latter might be made accessible from the Mediterranean. 

 The level of the Dead Sea lies 1,316.Y feet below that of the 

 ocean. It is bounded east and west by mountain ridges, rising to 

 the height of from 2,000 to 4,000 feet above the ocean. From 

 its southern end, a depression called the Wadi-el-Araba extends to 

 the GuK of Akaba, the eastern arm of the Eed Sea. The Jordan 

 empties into the northern extremity of the Dead Sea, after hav- 

 ing passed through the Lake of Tiberias at an elevation of 663.4 

 feet above the Dead Sea, or 653.3 below the Mediterranean, and 

 drains a considerable valley north of the lake, as well as the plain 

 of Jericho, which lies between the lake and the sea. If the waters 

 of the Mediterranean were admitted freely into the basin of the 

 Dead Sea, they would raise its surface to the general level of the 

 ocean, and consequently flood all the dry land below that level 

 within the basin. 



I do not know that accurate levels have been taken in the val- 

 ley of the Jordan above the Lake of Tiberias, and our informar 

 tion is very vague as to the hypsometry of the northern part of 

 the Wadi-el-Araba. As httle do we know where a contour line, 

 carried around the basin of the Dead Sea, at the level of the Medi- 

 terranean, would strike its eastern and western borders. We can 

 not, therefore, accurately compute the extent of now dry land 

 which would be covered by the admission of the waters of the 

 Mediterranean, or the area of the inland sea which would be thus 

 created. Its length, however, would certainly exceed one hun- 

 dred and fifty miles, and its mean breadth, including its gulfs and 

 bays, could scarcely be less than fifteen, perhaps even twenty. It 

 would cover very little ground now occupied by civilized or even 

 uncivilized man, though some of the soil which would be sub- 

 merged — for instance, that watered by the Fountain of Ehsha and 

 other neighboring sources — is of great fertility, and, under a wiser 

 government and better civil institutions, might rise to importance, 

 because, from its depression, it possesses a very warm climate, 

 and might supply Southeastern Europe with tropical prod- 

 ucts more readily than they can be obtained from any other 

 Bource. Such a canal and sea would be of no present commercial 



