ADDRESS. 15 
A very ancient road follows closely the line of the water- 
shed, along which most of the towns and villages, such as 
Shechem (Nablous), Nain, Sychar, Bethel, Jerusalem, Beth- 
lehem, and Hebron have been built. Such a line of commu- 
nication, and such sites, were a physical necessity in a 
country where the central ridge is so deeply intersected by 
ravines penetrating from opposite directions. By this road 
the Patriarch Abraham journeyed southwards towards the 
Plain of Mamre,* on the border of which stands Hebron, 
except Damascus, the most ancient inhabited city in the 
world. 
(3.) The line of the Jordan-Arabah depression has already 
been referred to, and has been so fully described by travellers 
that little need here be added regarding its physical features. 
The Ghor—or hollow—in which lies the Dead Sea is terminated 
along the south by cliffs of marl and gravel about 600 feet high; 
these beds form the floor of the Valley of the Arabah south- 
wards as far as the Ain Abu Werideh—a distance of forty 
miles from their northern margin along the Ghor. The level 
of these marls at Ain Abu Werideh is a little over that of the 
Mediterranean; and, as there can be no doubt that they were 
formed over the floor of an inland lake which must have stood 
at this level, it is concluded that the waters of the great Jordan- 
Valley Lake once rose to, at least, 1,300 feet above its present 
surface, and occupied the whole valley from the Ain Abu 
Werideh to the Lake of Huleh (or Merom), a distance of 200 
miles from north to south. The evidence thus adduced for the 
former great size of the Jordan-Valley Lake does not rest on 
observations made at the southern extremity only, but is borne 
out by similar phenomena observed at the northern extremity. 
Thus we find terraces on both sides of the Ghor (of which 
Jebel Usdum and the Lisan are fragments) at levels of 600 feet 
above the present surface ; and near the margin of the Sea of 
Tiberias Dr. Lortet has recognised a terrace formed of gravel, 
with rolled pebbles, occupying a position south-east of Safed. 
This terrace is as nearly as possible at a level with that of the 
Mediterranean. Hence Dr. Lortet: has inferred that the waters 
of the Sea of Tiberias formerly stood at that level. - This 
terrace near the northern margin corresponds with that of 
Ain Abu Werideh at the southern margin of the ancient lake, 
which has since shrunk back into three fragments connected 
by the stream of the Jordan. 
The expedition succeeded in establishing by observation in 
* Genesis xii. 8, and xiii. 18. 
