324 Lieut. Lynch? s Expedition to the Jordan and Dead Sea. 

 were dismissed. Upon the beach there were no round stones, 



but only those that were angular, and they were of flint. Two 



partridges of a stone color, like the rocks, were started before 

 them, and the note of a solitary bird was heard among the cane 

 thicket: birds therefore can live upon the shores of the Dead Sea. 



" But the scene was one of unmixed desolation ; and the air 

 tainted with sulphuretted hydrogen, gave a yellow hue to the 

 foliage of the cane which is elsewhere of a light green. " There 

 was no vegetation except of the canebrakes; u barren mountains, 

 fragments of blackened rocks," and a saline sea with dead trees 

 on its margin, bore a sad and sombre aspect. 



Near their camp, on the 20th of April, they saw a large brown 

 stone-colored hare and a partridge. The temperature was 89° F. 

 At 8 p. m., " the surface of the sea was one wide sheet of phos- 

 phorescent foam, and the waves, as they broke upon the shore, 

 threw a sepulchral light upon the dead bushes and fragments of 

 rocks. 7 ' This is an interesting observation, and as far as we 

 know it is original. We have never learned that any such ap- 

 pearance has been observed in the Caspian or any other internal 

 saline water. The luminous appearance probably arises from ani- 

 malcules, such as are phosphorescent in the ocean ; mere salt- 

 water, however strong the solution, has no such power. We 

 have then another proof that life is not entirely excluded from 

 this region. 



Soundings were taken in a course directed towards the eastern 

 or Arabian shore, a distance of nearly eight statute miles; the 

 greatest depth was 696 feet and 540 feet within a fourth of a 

 mile of the Arabian shore. Mr. Aulick reported a volcanic for- 

 mation, and brought specimens of lava. M Another line of sound- 

 ings running diagonally across to the S.E., disclosed a level plain 

 at the bottom of the sea with an average depth of over 1000 feet 

 all across ; the bottom blue mud and sand with regular cubes of 

 crystallized salt." The greatest depth on this line was 1065 feet, 

 and the greatest observed anywhere was 1278 feet. 



These operations were performed under a blazing sun, and the 

 water, greasy to the touch, made the men's hands smart and 

 burn severely* " By dusk, the sea rolled dangerously, the crests 

 of the waves dashed into the boats, the men had a severe pull, 

 and their clothes were stiff with salt." 



In a chasm in the mountains, on the eastern side, they found 

 a sweet and thermal spring which flowed into the sea. 



The brook Kidron which in rainy seasons runs in the valley 

 of Jehoshaphat at the foot of the mount of Olives, empties into 

 the Dead Sea in the Wady en Nar (Ravine of Fire) ; the bed is 

 a deep gorge whose sloping banks rise 1200 feet ; the channel 

 was now dry and filled with confused fragments of rocks. The 

 horizontal stratified limestone of the mountains, was almost devoid 





