26 Dr Robinson on the Apples of Sodom. 
semble edible fruits in colour, but, on being plucked with the 
hand, are dissolved into smoke and ashes.’’* In this account, 
after a due allowance for the marvellous in all popular reports, 
I find nothing which does not apply almost literally to the 
fruit of the Osher, as we saw it. It must be plucked and 
handled with great care, in order to preserve it from bursting. 
We attempted to carry some of the boughs and fruit with us 
to Jerusalem, but without success. 
Hasselquist finds the apples of Sodom in the fruit of the 
Solanum Melongena (nightshade, mad-apple) which we saw 
in great abundance at Ain Jidy, and in the plain of Jericho. 
These apples are much smaller than those of the Osher, and 
when ripe are full of small black grains. There is, however, 
nothing like explosion, nothing like ‘“‘ smoke and ashes,”’ except 
occasionally, as the same naturalist remarks, “ when the fruit 
is punctured by an insect (Tenthredo) which converts the 
whole of the inside into dust, leaving nothing but the rind 
entire, without any loss of colour.”{ We saw the Solanum 
and the Osher growing side by side; the former presenting 
nothing remarkable in its appearance, and being found in 
* Joseph. B. I. iv. 8.4. "Eori dt xa xeparois oxodicy cevaryervajetyny, of apocy mv Evoucs 
Tole EdwdiLo1s opolay BeePoeevaay 3: aepsly bis xaarvoy aynvervovrat xi reppar- Tacitus 
is still more general, Hist. v.6: “'Terramque ipsam specie torridam yim fru- 
giferam perdidisse. Nam cuncta sponte edita, aut manu data, sive herbie 
tenues aut flores, ut solitam in speciem adolevere atra et inania velut in 
cinerem vanescunt.” 
+ Seetzen was the first, I believe, to suggest the Osher (which he writes 
Aéschir) as producing the apples of Sodom, though he appears not to have 
seen the plant. Zach’s Monatl. Corr. xviii. p. 442. According to Irby and 
Maneles, “ there is very little doubt of this being the fruit of the Dead Sea, 
often noticed by the ancients,” &c. p. 450. I am not sure that Brocardus 
does not refer to the same plant when he says, that “ under En-gedi, by the 
Dead Sea, there are beautiful trees; but their fruit, on being plucked, is 
found full of smoke and ashes,” vii. p. 180. Fulcher Carnot seems to 
roean the Osher, when, in describing the productions around Segor (Zoar), 
he says: “ Ibi vidi pomain arboribus, que, cum corticem rupissem, interius 
esse pulverulenta comperi et nigra.” Gesta Dei, p. 405. 
t “ Quod pulvere intus repleta sint, verum est nonnunquam sed non sem- 
per accidit ; nempe in nonnullis, quod Tenthredine punguntur, que substan- 
tiam totam internam in pulyerem redigit, et corticem solum egregie colora- 
tum integrum relinquit.” Hasselquist Reise, p. 560. 
