366 NOTES ON THE GEOLOGY 



breadth is several miles, sometimes as many as ten or twelve : 

 but its exact depth cannot be stated, although in some parts, as 

 along the Dead Sea, and south of it, the adjoining mountains 

 rise above it not less than three thousand feet. 



If we begin at the Red Sea at Akabah, and proceed northward 

 through this valley, we shall find its bottom gi-adually rising ; that 

 is, sloping southerly for about twenty miles; and the side valleys, 

 or Wadys, as they are termed, fall into the Arabah so as to make 

 slightly acute angles with it on their northern sides, and obtuse 

 angles on their southern sides : that is, they fall into the Arabah, as 

 the branches of a river running southerly do, into its main channel. 

 These Wadys, however, as well as the Arabah, have no streams in 

 them except in the winter. About twenty miles north of Akabah, 

 we reach, according to Robinson and Smith, the highest part, or 

 watershed, of this valley between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea. 

 Thence the slope is northerly to the latter, a distance of nearly 

 sixty miles : and this slope is as gi-eat as it is towards the south. 

 From these facts we might infer with confidence, that the Dead 

 Sea must lie at a considerably lower level than the Red Sea. 

 Barometrical observations have been made within a few years 

 past, tending to confirm this inference. The results of different 

 experiments with the barometer are, however, very wide apart. 



Moore and Beke, in 1837, make the Dead 



Sea lower than- the Mediterranean, 500 English feet. 



Schubert, do. in 1837, 599 Paris 



Russegger and Bertou, do. in 1838, 1300 " " 



Wilkie, Beadle, and Woodburn, in 1841, 1417 Enghsh feet. 



The point, however, has more recently been settled by trigo- 

 nomical surveys. Lieut. Symonds, of the British Royal Engi- 

 neers, has in this way shown that the depression of the Dead 

 Sea below the Mediterranean is thnteen hundred and thirty-seven 

 feet, and that of the Sea of Tiberias eighty-four feet. (American 

 Biblical Pu'pository^ for July, 1842, p. 325.) Still greater is this 

 depression below the Red Sea ; since this is said to be twenty- 

 eight feet liigher than the Mediterranean. This is a most remark- 

 able fact, the parallel of wiiich has not been discovered on the 

 globe ; although the Caspian Sea is said to be one hundred and 



