362 HAUPT— THE BURNING BUSH [April 23, 



year ago by the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft,-^ were destroyed by 

 an earthquake accompanied by shouting and horn-blowing, i. e., 

 roaring and rumbhng. The idea that the walls of this ancient im- 

 pregnable fortress fell down owing to the shouts of the Israelites and 

 the horn-blowing Israelitish priests^" is a later embellishment. 



Similarly, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by a tectonic 

 earthquake. This was discussed more than ten years ago by the 

 German geologist Blanckenhorn, in his book on the Dead Sea 

 and the Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Berlin, 1908).^" 

 Also the explanation of the Pillar of Salt was given long ago. At 

 the southwestern end of the Dead Sea there is the so-called Moun- 

 tain of Sodom, consisting of crystallized rock-salt. From the face 

 of it great fragments are occasionally detached by the action of the 

 rains, and appear as pillars of salt, advanced in front of the general 

 mass. Such pillars (or pinnacles) have been often noticed by 

 travelers. Lieutenant W. F. Lynch described one which was about 

 40 feet high, cylindrical in form, and resting on a kind of oval 



"^ See No. 39 of the Mittcilungen der Dcutsclicn Oricnt-GcscllscJiajt 

 (Berlin, 1909). 



"" Compare the translation of the sixth chapter of the Book of Joshua 

 in the Polychrome Bible and the Notes, on page 62. The failing of the 

 waters of the Jordan, as described in Joshua, iii., 16 (compare the Notes 

 on page 60) may have been due to a landslip some 16 miles north of Jericho, 

 near Ed-Damieh (the ancient Adam, or rather AdamaJi, south of the mouth 

 of the Jabbok) where the valley of the Jordan contracts to a narrow gorge. 

 Canon Cheyne states in his Encyclopcsdia Biblica, col. 2400, that minor 

 landslides still occur in that region, and a large one might again dam up the 

 Jordan, and let it run off into the Dead Sea, leaving the bed temporarily dry. 

 An Arabic historian relates that on Dec. 7, a. d. 1266, in the neighborhood 

 of Ed-Ddmieh, a lofty mound, which overlooked the river on the west, fell 

 into the water and dammed it up for several hours. 



^"Compare Diener, Die Katastrophe von Sodom nnd Gomorrha im 

 Lichte geologischer Forschiing in the Mittheilungen der K. K. Geographi- 

 schen Gesellschaft in VVien, 1897, pp. 1-22; also Cheyne' s Encyclopcedia 

 Biblica, col. 1047. For the fire (Genesis, xix., 24. 28) following the earth- 

 quake, note Genesis, xiv., 3. 10 (the region was full of slimepits, i. e., bitumen 

 springs). From the Lord out of heaven (Genesis, xix., 24) is a subsequent 

 addition; rained does not necessarily mean that the brimstone and fire came 

 out of heaven; compare Psalm Ixxviii., 27. The Cologne Gazette of April 

 27, 1909, reported that during the recent earthquake at Lisbon, on April 23, 

 1909, boiling water, smoke, and sulphureous dust were ejected from several 

 large fissures. — There are sulphur springs in the region of the Dead Sea. 



