OF SEVERAL PARTS OF WESTERN ASIA. 875 



those cities were destroyed by a common volcanic ernplion, 

 must be given up. 



7. But seventhly, there is reason to believe that, from time to 

 time, the level of the Dead Sea has been considerably depressed 

 by volcanic agency. In order that the sand of the upper terrace 

 of the valley of the Jordan should be deposited, the waters of 

 that river must have flowed over it : in other words, the Dead 

 Sea nmst have once extended northerly far enough to cover that 

 valley ; for there is no barrier at the mouth of the Jordan, which 

 might formerly have kept its waters at a higher level than those of 

 the Dead Sea. To raise the sea above the highest terraces at the 

 mouth of the Jordan, would not require an elevation above its 

 present level of more than sixty feet ; but as the slope of the valley 

 southerly from the Sea of Tiberias, is, upon an average, twenty 

 feet in the mile, it would requue a rise of several hundred feet to 

 throw back the waters over the whole of the broader part of the val- 

 ley. But if we admit that tlie waters of the Dead Sea have suffered 

 so much depression in comparatively recent times, still, the great(,'r 

 part of the work must have been accomplished previous to the 

 existence of man upon the globe. For, as above remarked, the 

 terraces on other rivers, and therefore those upon the Jordan, have 

 not been very much changed since the earliest historic times ; and 

 the ten'aces upon the latter stream could not have been formed, 

 until the Dead Sea had sunk so far as to leave dry the space now 

 occupied by the terraces. Still, I think there is good reason to 

 believe that the bottom of the Dead Sea, certainly of its southern 

 part, may have sunk a few feet as late as the time of the destruc- 

 tion of the cities of the plain. That Sodora«and Gomorrah were 

 situated at the southern ])art of the Dead Sea, seems highly prob- 

 able ; because many of the ancient writers located Zoar, which 

 was near to Sodom, on the southeast side of tlie present sea. 

 But at present there is not room enough for such cities on tlie 

 borders of the sea ; and the soil in general is extremely sterile. 

 Further, the scriptures speak of the vale of Siddim, ivhich is not 

 on the borders of, but which is the salt sea : that is, it was sea 

 when the event alluded to (a battle, before the destruction of 

 Sodom) was described, but dry land when it took place. An- 



