On the Valley of the Jordan and the Dead Sea. 5 



shrubs, the oleander, arbutus, wild rose, &c. pushed out from the 

 crevices of the mountain, or by an occasional dwarf olive, main- 

 taining a doubtful and contested existence upon the thin soil. 

 This chain seems at a distance to be one single unsupported ridge, 

 with a summit slightly waving ; but upon approaching it the com- 

 posing ridges separate from the mass, those of lower elevation 

 lying in front of the superior one, all uniting in curvilinear bases 

 and rising in distinct parallel ranges. This central chain deter- 

 mines the configuration of the greater part of Palestine ; giving 

 the shape to the plains that lie in between the spurs that it sends 

 off, and the direction to the streams that are fed from its bosom, 

 and fall on the one side into the Mediterranean, and upon the other 

 into the Dead Sea, the river Jordan, the lakes of Tiberias and El 

 Hulil. Between its base and the Mediterranean, stretches a vast 

 alluvia], unfenced plain of pasture and wheat land, whose verdant 

 knolls are everywhere covered by small Arab villages of stone, in 

 which, gathered at once for society and protection, almost the 

 whole fixed population are to be found. The rounded pebble 

 stones strewed over this plain, and the bones of marine animals, 

 fish and testacea, mingled everywhere with the soil, indicate the 

 subaqueous character of its formation. No observations, so far as 

 I am informed, have ever been made to determine the nature or 

 order of the depositions which have converted the former bed of 

 the sea into dry land ; but the uniform undulations of surface 

 which characterize this plain, show that its bed was formed in an 

 open flowing sea, exposed to the influence of the currents ; while 

 the perfectly horizontal level of the great plain Esdraelon indicates 

 that the sediment was thrown down in an archipelago, the pres- 

 ent insulated mountains of Tabor, Hermon, &c. forming the chief 

 islands, and favoring the quiet process of deposition which finally, 

 by gradual accessions, raised the bottom to the surface. 



2. The Eastern part of Palestine. 



I have spoken of the great western plain intervening between 

 the mountains and the Mediterranean ; eastward of these moun- 

 tains, however, lies a tract which exhibits every element of ster- 

 ility and desolation. This entire district, comprised between a 

 line drawn ten miles east of Jerusalem due north and south, and 

 the Arabian mountains, which form the eastern boundary of the 

 Ghor, as the Syrian Arabs term the Jordan valley, — a tract aver- 

 aging eighteen miles in breadth by one hundred in length, and 



