Def,cnption of Minerals from Palestine. 349 



hy these balls Djezzar alluded to mineral concretions of a 

 spherical form, found in that mountain. As the Turks made 

 use of stones, instead of cannot-shot, it is probable that Djez- 

 zar, who was in great want of ammunition, had determined 

 upon using the stalagmites of Mount Carmel for that pur- 

 pose-" When 1 first read Clarke, I had not the most distant 

 expectation of ever havint^^ the pleasure, personally, to exam- 

 ine specimens of these singular stones. 



33. "Picked up near the shore of the Dead Sea " It is a 

 small fragment of flint, partly of a flesh-red, and partly of a 

 brown colour. 



34. " From a mountain near the Dead Sea." This is a 

 dark gray bituminous limestone. Before the blowpipe, it 

 inflames, sends forth a dense smoke, a strong bituminous 

 odour, and becomes bleached. I have never before seen 

 limestone which contained so large a proportion of bitumen. 



35. '" This stone was taken from a mountain near the Dead 

 Sea. I afterwards put it on hot coals, and it gave out a strong 

 stench o( sn/phv?', {oi' bitumen, it is presumed, as I could per- 

 ceive no odour of sulphur from No. 34, which is beyond 

 question the same kind of stone,) and, for about two miiiutes^ 

 a blaze four or five inches high. J3efore burning, it was of a 

 dark colour, and much harder than now." " The black fetid 

 limestone of the lake Asphaltites" (the same as No. 35,) 

 " is," says Clarke, ■' manufactured and sold at Jf rusalem for 

 amulets. It is worn in the east as a charm against the 

 plague " 



A multitude of unfounded reports have long been in circu- 

 culation, and have gained admittance into many valuable 

 v/orks, respecting the dreariness and insalubrity of the lake 

 Asphaltites, and of the region of country around it. It has 

 been affirmed that fish could not live in its waters; that no 

 substance would sink in them ; that every kind of matter 

 thrown into the lake, however heavy, would instantly b^ press- 

 ed to its surface; that, owinti to the destructive exhalations 

 which perpetually proceed from the water, every bird that 

 attempted to fly over it fell lifeless on its surface ; that dis- 

 mal sounds issue from it, like the stifled clamours of the peo- 

 ple who were ingulphed in its flood; rindthat a very beautiful 

 fruit grows on its margin, which is no sooner touched than it 

 becomes '' dust and bitter ashes.'' These and a thousand 

 other wonderful tales of a similar character, modern travellers 

 have discovered to be entirely fictitious. 



