22 Mr Lambert on the Apples of Sodom. 
those of Quercus infectoria, which is accurately figured in 
Olivier’s Travels in the Levant, and that the galls are iden- 
tical with those of commerce. The tree grows abundantly 
throughout Syria. The insect has been named by Olivier 
Diplolepis ; and it is also accurately figured by him in the 
above-mentioned work ; but he does not appear to have been 
aware of the galls being the same with the Mala insana. 
The following are extracts from Conder’s Modern Traveller : 
“There yet remains to be noticed, in connexion with this 
subject, the far-famed apples described by Tacitus and Josephus 
as beautiful to the eye, but crumbling at the touch to dust and 
bitter ashes.* Reland, Maundrell, and Shaw, all express them- 
selves as sceptical concerning its existence. But none of them 
explored the borders of the lake sufficiently to entitle them to 
give a decided opinion on the subject, having only seen its 
northern shore. Pococke is inclined to lay more stress on the 
ancient testimonies; and he supposes the apples to be pomegra- 
nates, ‘which, having a tough, hard, rind, and being left on the 
trees two or three years, the inside may be dried to dust, and 
the outside may remain fair.” Hasselquist, however, the pupil 
of Linnzeus, pronounces the Poma sodomitica to be the fruit 
of the Solanum Melongena (egg-plant nightshade, or mad-ap- 
ple), which he states to be found in great abundance round Je- 
richo, in the valleys near the Jordan, and in the neighbourhood 
of the Dead Sea. “ It is true,” he says, “that these apples are 
sometimes full of dust, but this appears only when the fruit is 
attacked by an insect (Tenthredo), which converts the whole of 
the inside into dust, leaving nothing but the rind entire, without 
causing it to lose any of its colour.” _M. Seetzen, differing from 
Hasselquist in opinion, supposes the apple of Sodom to be the 
fruit of a species of cotton-tree, which, he was told, grows in 
the plain of El Ghor, in appearance resembling a fig tree, and 
known by the name of dbeschaez. The cotton is contained 
in the fruit, which is like a pomegranate, but has no pulp. 
* Book of Wisdom, chap. x. verse 7. “ Of whose wickedness even to this 
day the waste land that smoketh is a testimony, and plants bearing fruit 
that never come to ripeness; and a standing pillar of salt is a monument of 
an unbelieving soul.” 
+ See also Wisdom, x. 7. 
