272 HASISADRA'S ADVENTURE vn 



have been lowered, these deposits have been cut 

 down to great depths, and are still being excavated 

 by the present temporary, or permanent, streams. 

 Hence, it follows, that all these ravines must 

 have existed before the time at which the valley 

 was occupied by the great mere. This fact acquires 

 a peculiar importance when we proceed to con- 

 sider the grounds for the conclusion that the old 

 Palestinian mere attained its highest level in the 

 cold period of the pleistocene epoch. It is well 

 known that glaciers formerly came low down on 

 the flanks of Lebanon and Antilebanon ; indeed, 

 the old moraines are the haunts of the few survivors 

 of the famous cedars. This implies a perennial 

 snowcap of great extent on Hermon ; therefore, a 

 vastly greater supply of water to the sources of 

 the Jordan which rise on its flanks ; and, in 

 addition, such a total change in the general climate, 

 that the innumerable Wadys, now traversed only 

 by occasional storm torrents, must have been 

 occupied by perennial streams. All this involves 

 a lower annual temperature and a moist and rainy 

 atmosphere. If such a change of meteorological 

 conditions could be effected now, when the loss by 

 evaporation from the surface of the Dead Sea 

 salt-pan balances all the gain from the Jordan 

 and other streams, the scale would be turned in 

 the other direction. The waters of the Dead Sea 

 would become diluted; its level would rise; it 

 would cover, first the plain of the Jordan, then the 



