THE HUMAN SPECIES. 77 



and yet, no traveller remarks, that if these statements 

 be nearly correct, the ridge behind, or west of Jeru- 

 salem, being in sight from the lake, would be more 

 than 4000 English feet higher and loftier than any 

 mountain in Great Britain;* nor is there any notice 

 taken of the levels of the lake as compared with the 

 Gulf of Akkaba which is nearly on the same level as 

 the Mediterranean and the elevation of the ridge 

 which parts the Dead Sea from Wady Moosa. Al- 

 ready, before the era of Abraham, it is evident, by the 

 notice of slime pits (naphtha) in the plain of Gomorrha, 

 that volcanic action was kindled ; and when the surface 

 subsided into the Asphaltic Basin, the ridge in Wady 

 Moosa was elevated, and the Jordan, already insuffi- 

 cient to compensate for the evaporation, could no longer 

 flow to the Red Sea. There is at least a certain affinity 

 with Africa in this region, supported by a proportion of 

 the local botany, and by the fish of the Lake of Tiberias. 

 The volcanic flues, branching off, pass through Arabia 

 to Aden, and beneath the Red Sea ; and another, more 

 due west, communicates with Northern Africa, beyond 

 the Egyptian boundary, far into the interior. 



Fiom Palestine and Syria, eastward to the Indus, 



* According to measurements of British naval officers, 

 taken after the capture of Acre in 1839, it appears oy lines 

 of altitude carried from the Mediterranean to the Dead 

 Sea, &c. that the Lake of Tiberias was 84 English feet 

 below the Mediterranean ; the A rabah al Kadesh, 91 feet ; 

 the Dead Sea, 1337 ; whence it is plain, no region of equal 

 extent, on the earth, presents phenomena of such great dif- 

 ference, for the culminating point of Libanus rises, at 

 Mount Hermon, to 10,000 feet. 



