﻿14 On the Valley of the Jordan and the Dead Sea. 



* 



When did this change occur ? Is it coeval, as Dr. Robinson 

 seems to think, with the formation of the present crust of the 

 earth ; or is it contemporaneous with the destruction of the cities 

 of the plain? We believe that it is not assignable to either of 

 these periods : but is the result of causes operating slowly through 

 long spaces, or as we may say through all time, or continually 

 causes which sometimes have made themselves felt there with 

 greater intensity than at others, but which are constant even in 

 their apparent fluctuations. 



The volcanic character of the whole region has already been 

 adverted to. The thermal and mineral springs that occur along 

 the shores of the Dead Sea, the Lake of Tiberias * and in the 

 vicinity of Safed — the hill of fossil salt at the southwest end of 

 the Dead Sea — the nitrous crust covering the bed of the Jordan 

 valley north and south of the sea, the pieces of sulphur found at 

 various places in its vicinity, the bitumen exuding upon its bot- 

 tom, and the arid, burnt soil of the contiguous country, all bear 

 evidence to the igneous nature of the agencies that have pro- 

 duced them — agencies which we cannot believe have confined 

 their action to the fruitless production of these marks, but have 

 left the impress of their destroying and upheaving force upon the 

 whole region. Earthquakes also, shaking this district from time 

 to time, opening seams, giving passage to new streams, or disclo- 

 sing hot springs, testify that this subterranean power is still active. 

 Josephus makes mention of one in the time of Herod which de- 

 stroyed ten thousand people.f In 1759 a violent convulsion shook 

 down part of the walls of Safed : it lasted three months, and de- 

 stroyed three thousand people. But the severest shock was felt 

 in 1837, which prostrated the whole town of Tiberias, burying 

 many of the inhabitants beneath the ruins, causing vast rents in 

 the adjacent hills, and displacing broad areas of land. This 

 movement was felt throughout the whole Jordan valley, and fol- 

 lowed the linear direction of the mountains which bound it. 



Had we a series of records made by scientific observers of the 

 time of the occurrence of all the violent catastrophes that have 

 happened in this region, but more particularly of the new phe- 

 nomena that have occurred in the intervals of great agitation, un- 



* At the .baths of Emmaus, on the west shore of this lake, the water has a tem- 

 perature of lo0° F. and is highly sulphureous, 

 t Liber xv, § 2. 



