° 
March 29, 1883] 
NATURE 
521 
monoliths of Egypt have been hewn, such as Cleopatra’s Needle’ 
the obelisk of Luxor, and the columns which adorn the Piazza 
of Venice. This foundation rock formed part of a conti- 
nental area down to the Carboniferous period, when it was sub- 
merged, and a great sandstone formation was spread over it 
known as ‘‘the Nubian sandstone.” After another interval of 
time the sandstone itself was overspread by limestone deposits 
of Cretaceous and Tertiary aze, deposited over the floor of the 
ancient sea, and down to the close of the Eocene period the 
‘waters of the sea overspread the greater portions of Asia Minor, 
Palestine, and the adjoining districts of the Asiatic and African 
continents. The first appearance of Palestine and the adjoining 
districts asa land surface dates from the succeeding Miocene 
period, when the bed of the sea was upraised into dry land, and 
at the same period a great fissure corresponding with the line of 
the Jordan valley was produced. Along this fissure, which has been 
traced from the Lebanon southwards towards the Gu'f of Akaba 
—the strata on the eastern (or Moabite) side have been relatively 
elevated : those on the western relatively depressed ;—so that 
the strata on the opposite sides of the Jordan valley and the 
Dead Sea do not correspond with each other. This great fissure 
is the key to the physical formation of the whole region, because 
it gave origin to a river which once flowed down from the 
mountains of Lebanon—southwards through the Gorge of 
Arabah (discovered by Burkhardt)—into the Red Sea in 
a remarkably straight line running north and south for 
a distance of over 250 miles. This is now the Jordan. 
The depression of the valley continuing through the succeeding 
Pliocene epoch, the district of the Ghor and the Jordan valley 
was conveyed into a lake, which Prof. Hull considered ulti- 
mately extended from the southern end of the Dead Sea, north- 
wards nearly to the Lake Merom, and included the Sea of 
Galilee. This lake would then have had a length of 160 miles 
and an average breadth of ten miles. During ‘‘the Pluvial 
period,” which succeeded ‘the Glacial,” the waters probably 
reached their maximun elevation, and contiiued to flow south- 
wards through the Gorge of Arabah and the Gulf of Akaba into 
the Red Sea; but from the increasing dryness of the climate 
they gradually decreased, and the surface of the Inke became 
contracted, and ultimately reduced to its existing limits. During 
this lowering of the surface, the remarkable terraces noticed by 
most travellers were formed. Dr. Tristram has taken the baro- 
metric level of several of these above the Dead Sea. They 
range up to 750 feet, and even higher. They appear to be un- 
doubtedly old lake margins, and indicate the successive levels at 
which the lake stood. The 750-foot terrace very closely corre- 
spoads to the summit-level of the Gorge of Arabah. When the 
waters were reduced so iow as not to pass through the Gorge of 
Arabah, they became brackish, and ultimately salt—the salinity 
increasing as the area became diminished. Al] lakes not having 
an outlet become saline; and the contrast of the waters of the 
Sea of Galilee and those of the Dead Sea form a striking illus- 
tration of the law just stated. The saline ingredients in the sur- 
face waters of the Dead Sea are 24°57 lbs. in 1oolbs. of the 
water, while that of the Atlantic only contains 6 lbs. in the 
same quantity. The Dead Sea water is therefore over four times 
as strongly impregnated with salts as that of the ocean, and in 
the deeper waters the salinity amounts to sataration, as saline 
deposits are forming over the floor of the Dead Sea. This re- 
markable inland sea had assumed somewhat of its present con- 
tracted dimensions, and was known as ‘‘the Salt Sea” as far 
back as the time of the Patriarch Abraham. Near its borders 
stood the doomed cities of Sodom and Gomorrah—not beneath 
its waters, as was often supposed—but near its upper margin. 
With the call of Abraham the political and religious history of 
Palestine begins, and the narrative of the physical historian 
ends. 
SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 
American Fournal of Science, March.—The selective absorp- 
tion of solar energy, by S. P. Langley.—New locality of the 
green turquois known as chalcuite, and:on the identity of 
turquois with the callais or callaina of Pliny, by W. P. Blake. 
—On portions of the skeleton of a whale from gravel on the 
line of the Canada Pacific Railway near Smith Falls, Ontario, 
by J. W. Dawson.—The cobwebs of Uloborus, by J. H. 
Emerton.—Glacial drift in the Upper Missouri River region, by 
C. A. White.—Late observations concerning the molluscan 
fauna and the geographical extent of the Laramie group, by the 
i 
same.—The Sphingide of North America, by A. R. Grote.— 
** Rotational coefficients” of various metals, by E. H. Hall. — 
Recent exploration of the voleanic phenomena of the Hawaiian 
islands, by C. E. Dutton. 
Journal of the Russian Chemical and Physical Society, vol. xiv. 
fase. 9.—On several ethylenic hydrocarbons, and on their action 
on water, by M. A. Eltekoff. Of the compounds of the series 
C,,H,,0, the oxides are the least known, and it still remains in 
doubt as to those described by MM. Bauer, Wiirtz, Jekyll, and 
Clermont being true oxides and not ketones ; M. Eltekoff studied, 
therefore, the action on water of seven compounds of this series. 
He arrives at the conclusion that the characteristic features of 
oxides do not disappear, as seemed formerly to be the case, in more 
compound oxides containiny even as much as six equivalents of car- 
bon. Their capacity of entering in direct compounds with water 
diminishes, however, in proportion as the molecule becomes 
more complicated.—Oa the oxidation of sulphur used for 
covering the vineyards, by M. A. Bazaroff.—On the evaporation 
of liquids, by M. Sreznewsky. Evaporation of benzol, ether, 
ethyl-alcohol, chloroform, and sulphur of carbon at different 
temperatures. The paper will be continued.—On the critical 
temyerature and pressure of water, by M. O. Strauss. The 
average of a series of observations gives for the critical tempera- 
ture of water 370°, with a probable error of 5°. The critical 
pressure would be 195°5 atmospheres. —Hist »rical sketch of the 
work accomplished by the Physical Society during its ten years’ 
existence, by M. N. Hesehus.—On the te nperature of the 
absolute vaporisation of liquids, by M. Nadejdin.—Oa the 
spheroidal state of liquids, by M. D. Diakonoff.—Minutes of 
proceedings. 
Rivista Scientifico-Industriale e Giornale del Naturalista, 
January 15.—The glossograph of S. GentilliimInfueace of 
ozone in agriculture, by S. Ziano.—The radiometer and school 
experiments, by C. Rovelli.—Fossil elephants in the district of 
Parma.—Simple holohedral forms of the rhombohedral system, 
by M. de Lupo. 
Reale Istituto Lombardo di Scienzz e Lettere. Rendiconti, vl. 
xvi. fasc. i.—Meteorological résumé of the year 1882, calculated 
on observations made at the Royal Observatory of Brera, by E. 
Pini.—The frost of 1882 considered in its agrariin and meteoric 
aspect, by E. Ferrario.—Results of observations on the ampli- 
tade of diurnal oscillation of the declination-needle made during 
1882 at Brera Observatory, by G. Schiaparelli—On the action 
of metallic iodide on leuci1e and other like substances, by G. 
Korner and E. Menozzi. 
Fasc. ii.—Property of a class of functions with more variables 
than are presented in dynamics in the case of permanent motion, 
by C. Formentii—On some plane involutions, by E. Bertini.— 
Generalisation of a theore n on the analytical representation of 
substitutions, by A. Grandi. 
Schriften der Physicalisch-Okonomischen Gesellschaft zu 
Konigsberg. 1880, first part; 1881, first and second parts.— 
Geological investigation of the North German level country, 
especially East and West Prussia, in the years 1878-80, by A. 
Jentzsch.—Contributions to a knowledge of the Silurian Cepha- 
lopoda found in the East and West Prussian diluvial formations, 
by H. Schréder.—Rugous corals in the same formation, by G. 
Meyer.—The scales of our fishes, by B. Benecke.—On some 
diluvial and alluvial diatom-layers of North Germany, by P. T. 
Cleve and A. Jentzsch.—The underground portion of the North 
German level country, by A. Jentzsch. 
Verhandlungen der Naturhistorischen Vereines der Preuss 
ischen Rheinlande und Westfalens, 1882 (first half).—Further 
observations on fertilisation of flowers by insects, by H. Miiller. 
—On the various systems of measurement of elestric and mag- 
netic quantities, by R. Clausius.—The lower Devonian strata of 
Olkenbach, by O. Follmann. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 
LONDON 
Royal Society, March 8.—‘* Notes on the Absorption of 
Ultra-Violet Rays by various Substances,” by Professors Liveing 
and Dewar. 
These notes contain some records of ultra-violet absorptions 
in addition to those which have been examined by Soret, 
