On the Waters of the Dead Sea. 313 
of the sea should sweep a bed of shells from its original lo- 
eality, is intelligible enough; but that, while transporting 
them over some hundred feet or yards, it should preserve 
them unbroken, with the valves still united,—that the rush- 
ing water, instead of ploughing up the dry land it invaded, 
should smooth and level an area of more than an acre, then 
spread out the shells upon it with mathematical regularity, 
in an uninterrupted stratum of nearly uniform depth,—that, 
finally, it should cover them with a bed of clay two or three 
feet thick, and then withdraw ;—these seem to me to be effects 
utterly irreconcilable with the known agency of floods. I 
would as soon believe that the West India hurricane, instead 
of levelling the planter’s house, transports it en masse, with 
its walls, roof, and furniture all entire, from one end of a 
field to the other. 
On the Waters of the Dead Sea. By Mr Tuornton J. 
HERAPATH, and WILLIAM HERAPATH, Esq., F'.G.S., Presi- 
dent of the Bristol Philosophical and Literary Society, and 
Lecturer on Chemistry and Toxicology at the Bristol School 
of Medicine, &§c., §e.* 
The Dead Sea, or as it is called by the Arabs, Bahr Lout 
(Lot’s Sea), though somewhat insignificant in size, has, never- 
theless, in consequence of the extraordinary physical charac- 
ter of its waters, and the awe and mystery which ancient 
tradition has thrown around its history, attracted the atten- 
tion of mankind from time immemorial. Under the several 
appellations of the “ Salt Sea,” (Num. xxxiv. 3; Deut. iii. 17; 
Josh. xv. 5); the “Sea of the Plains,” (Deut. iv. 49); and 
the “ East Sea,” (Ezek. xlvii. 18 ; Joel ii. 20), frequent men- 
tion of it is to be met with in the Holy Scriptures ; and, in 
fact, it is now supposed to occupy the site of the cities of 
Sodom and Gomorrah, the destruction of which, by the wrath 
of the Almighty, is so graphically described in the eighteenth 
chapter of Genesis. In the works of the Greek and Roman 
* Extracted from the Memoir on the Waters of the Dead Sea, in No. VIII. 
of the Quarterly Journal of the Chemical Society of London. 
