368 NOTES ON THE GEOLOGY 



the southeast shore ; and Seetzen describes the mountain there 

 as of gray sandstone. My collection is altogether wanting in 

 specimens from the east side of the sea, except the small frag- 

 ment No. 363, which seems to be siliceous slate. But I tliink 

 we may safely conclude, that there does not exist on that side of 

 the sea any decided marks of volcanic action, or they would 

 have been noticed by such intelligent travellers as have passed 

 over that region. Near the northwest part of the sea, however, 

 both IMi-. Hebard and Mr. Homes picked up specimens of genu- 

 ine vesicular aiigitic lava, Nos. 126 and 362. The latter was 

 obtained by Mr. Homes "• from a mound once surrounded by the 

 Dead Sea ; " and I understood that gentleman to say in conver- 

 sation, that this small mound was composed of similar rock. 

 But Dr. Robinson is of opinion, that the specimens obtained by 

 Messrs. Hebard and Homes, were mere loose fragments ; and 

 he saw no lava in place, as he passed along that side of the sea. 

 The same is true along the Jordan, until we get as far as the Sea 

 of Tiberias, whose shores are covered with black lava of almost 

 every sort: Nos. 119, 120. A few miles to the northwest of that 

 lake, and a little beyond Safed, netu- the village of Kadita, JMr. 

 Hebard discovered a distinct crater, from which No. 125, whose 

 cavities contain hyalite,'' was obtained. It is between three 

 hundred and four hundred feet in its longest diameter, and one 

 hundred and twenty in its shortest ; and about forty feet deej). 

 {Robinson and Smith, vol. 3, p. 367.) Following the Jordan to 

 its source, similar vesicular and compact lava and basalt are 

 found, as Nos. 121 and 123, from the east side of Anti-Lebanon, 

 will show ; and I have little doubt that they may be found almost 

 uninterruptedly through the whole extent of that chain, as far as 

 Aleppo. Indeed, Messrs. Thomson and Beadle, in passing from' 

 Beyroot to Aleppo, found volcanic rocks in great abundance : 

 west of Aleppo, indeed, over a space of fifty miles broad ; tliat 

 is, reckoning on a parallel of latitude. 



On, the southwest side of the Dead Sea there exists an inter- 

 esting deposit of rock salt, called Kashum Usdum, from its 

 situation near the ancient Sodom. It forms a ridge from one 

 hundi-ed to one hunched and fifty feet high, five miles long. 



