HEATH. 



(Common Heath, Heather, or Ling.) 



Erica Vulyar is. 



two words translated &quot; heath&quot; in Jer. xvii. G and 

 xlviii. G are different from each other. The former, 

 however, is supposed to denote the true heather, which 

 in varieties is found scattered over Europe, Asia, and 

 Africa. Hasselquist, who visited Palestine as a bota 

 nist, discovered great quantities of it growing on the plains 

 around Jericho and north of the Dead Sea. This portion of 

 the land, especially near the borders of the sea, is much in 

 jured by deposition from the salt breezes; but even where the 

 soil contains considerable saline matter the heather seems to 

 flourish as well as upon the more pleasant parts of the valley 

 of the Jordan farther north.* 



The fact of its growth near the Salt Sea makes the allusion 

 to the heath so impressive in that passage of the prophet Jere 

 miah where he speaks of &quot;the man that departeth from the Lord 

 and maketh flesh his arm. For he shall be like the heath in 

 the desert, and shall not see when good cometh, but shall in 

 habit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land, and 

 not inhabited.&quot; 



* See a description of this soil, and of the effect of the breezes, in &quot;Palestine Past 

 and Present,&quot; page 445. 



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