376 NOTES ON THE GEOLOGY 



Other fact mentioned by Robinson and Smith, renders a recent 

 sinking of the Dead" Sea somewhat probable. Towards the 

 mouth of the Jordan there are three banks, or terraces, on each 

 side of the river : but higher up ihe sti-eam, there are only tsvo. 

 The lowest teiTace is only a few feet below the second. Now 

 suppose the plain at the south end of the sea to have sunk a few 

 feet, so that the waters flowed over it : the effect would be to sink 

 the whole sea ; especially if the depression extended, as it prob- 

 ably would, to the entire bottom of the sea. There is another 

 circumstance, which not only favors the idea of such a depression 

 of the surface, and an overflow of the waters, but gives a proba- 

 bility to the opinion that the southern portion of the Dead Sea is 

 the site of Sodom. It is stated in scripture, that the vale of 

 Siddim, in which the cities of the plain were situated, was full of 

 slime-pits ; that is, u'ells or fountains of asphaltum ; the same word 

 being used as is employed in describing Babylon, whose walls 

 we know were cemented by bitumen. No such wells occur, as 

 we know of, any where around the Dead Sea : but, as we have 

 seen, large masses of asphaltum have risen to the surface some- 

 times, as the effect of earthquakes, near the south eiid of that sea ; 

 and only at the south end. If springs of asphaltum exist beneath 

 the waters, this would be a legitimate effect of the gradual accu- 

 mulation of fluid bitumen, and its consolidation into asphaltum. 

 As it is a good deal lighter than water, a violent agitation of the 

 surface would detach it and cause it to ascend. 



Now it is well known, that such effects as have been described, 

 might be the result of volcanic agency, where there was no erup- 

 tion of lava. The sudden subsidence of towns and cities on the 

 sea-coast, from a few feet to several hundred, has been a not un- 

 common occurrence ; as of Port Royal in Jamaica, in 1692 ; of 

 Lisbon, in 1755 ; of Euphemia in Calabria, in 1638 ; and of 

 Sindrea on the Indus, in 1819. In the latter case the sea rushed 

 in and covered a space of two thousand square miles. Through 

 the fissures produced by the earthquake, steam, hot water, mud, 

 sulphur, petroleum, flames, and suffocating vapors, have several 

 times been known to issue. We have here, then, all the ingre- 

 dients and all the agency necessary to produce the destruction of 



