838 JI. O. Russell—The Jordan-Arabah and the Dead Sea. 
their several expeditions, the writer is under obligations to the 
Ordnance Survey of Palestine, and to many observant travellers, 
including Condor, Fraas, Tristram, Wilson, and others, for many 
interesting details and attractive descriptions concerning the regions 
to which it is desired to direct the reader’s attention. 
The similarity between the recent geological history of the Dead 
Sea, and the area of interior drainage in America known as the 
“Great Basin,” with which I have some familiarity, is so marked 
that I venture to offer a few suggestions and hypotheses, which will, 
perhaps, be of interest to those who may continue the study of the 
Geology of Palestine and adjacent regions. I have also inserted 
a brief account of certain lake-shore phenomena, which have proved 
of great value in interpreting the ancient histories of several 
American lakes, which are comparable in many ways with the 
Dead Sea. 
Physical Geology of the Dead Sea Region. 
On the west side of the abrupt valley in which the Sea of Galilee, 
the valley of the Jordan, the Dead Sea, and the Wady Arabah— 
termed the Jordan-Arabah depression—are situated, lies the table 
land of Judea, and the extension southward of the same physical 
feature known as the plateau of the Tih. The general elevation 
of this extensive table land is about 2000 feet above the Mediter- 
ranean, with occasional eminences attaining a height of from 2500 
to 8000 feet. On the east it breaks off in an abrupt escarpment, 
which forms the western boundary of the Jordan-Arabah depression. 
This depression is bounded on the east by an escarpment still more 
rugged and of a greater elevation than on the west. The eastern 
wall, like the western, exposes the edges of strata which form a vast 
plateau, known east of the Jordan as the table land of Moab, having 
a general surface level of about 38000 feet, and farther south as the 
table land of Edom, the general elevation of which is about 4000 
feet above the ocean. The Moab-Edom plateau stretches far to the 
eastward, with but little change in its physical features, and merges 
with the Syrian and Arabian deserts, but is not again broken by 
a sunken area similar to that holding the Dead Sea. 
The depression separating the plateaux we have mentioned is from 
five to nine miles broad, and extends in an approximately north 
and south direction from the base of Mount Hermon at the north to 
the Red Sea at the south, a distance of fully 875 miles. Its 
southern end is occupied for about 100 miles by the waters of the 
Gulf of Akabah. The length of the Jordan-Arabah depression 
proper is nearly 250 miles, its southern terminus being at the water- 
shed between the Wady Arabah and the drainage which finds its 
way toward the Gulf of Akabah. 
Considering general features simply, there are two elevated table 
lands in the south-western part of Asia Minor, separated by a deep, 
narrow depression or fault valley, which is partially filled by the 
Dead Sea. 
