286 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA, AND ITS METEOROLOGY. 



ill considering marine fossils, changes of climates, the effects of 

 deserts upon the winds, or the influence of mountains upon rains, 

 or some of the many phenomena which the inland basins of the 

 earth — those immense indentations on its surface that have no 

 sea-drainage— present for contemplation and study. 



532. Tlie level of the Dead Sea. — Among the most interesting of 

 these last is that of the Dead Sea. Lieutenant Lynch, of the 

 United States Navy, has run a level from that sea to the Mediter- 

 ranean, and finds the former to be about one thousand three 

 hundred feet below the general sea-level of the earth. In seeking 

 to account for this great difference of w^ater-level, the geologist 

 examines the neighbouring region, and calls to his aid the forces 

 of elevation and depression which are sui^posed to have resided 

 in the neighbourhood; he then points to them as the agents 

 which did the work. Truly they are mighty agents, and they 

 have diversified the surface of the earth with the most towering 

 monuments of their power. But is it necessary to suppose that 

 they resided in the vicinity of this region ? May the}^ not have 

 come from the sea, and been, if not in this case, at least in the 

 case of other inland basins, as far removed as the other hemi- 

 sphere ? This is a question which I do not pretend to answer 

 definitely. But the inquiry as to the geological agency of the 

 winds in such cases is a question which my investigations have 

 suggested. It has its seat in the sea, and therefore I propound it 

 as one which, in accounting for the formation of this or that 

 inland basin, is worthy, at least, of consideration. 



633. An ancient river from it. — Is there any evidence that the 

 annual amount of precipitation upon the water-shed of the Dead 

 Sea, at some former period, was greater than the annual amount 

 of evaporation horn it now is ? If yea, from what part of the 

 sea did the vapour that supplied the excess of that precipitation 

 come, and what has cut off that supply ? The mere elevation of 

 the rim and depression of the lake basin would not cut it off. If 

 we establish the fact that the Dead Sea at a former period did 

 send a river to the ocean, we carry along w4th this fact the 

 admission that when that sea overflowed into that river, then the 

 w^ater that fell from the clouds over the Dead Sea basin was more 

 than the winds could convert into vapour and cany away again ; 

 the river carried off the excess to the ocean whence it came 

 (§ 267). 



534. Precipitation and evaporation in the Dead Sea valley. — In the 



