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



mon with a large volcanic circle embracing Asia Minor, the coun- 

 tries lying about the sea of Aral, the Caspian and Black seas, the 

 Thracian Cliersonesns, Greece, the Ionian and Archi pelagian isl- 

 ands, we have the general testimony of Pliny, Strabo, Josephus 

 and other early historians : but their observations, limited to the 

 effects of the more violent catastrophes in the destruction of man 

 and his habitation, give us only partial and inferential information 

 upon the amount and intensity of these internal movements and 

 the topical changes they have wrought upon the surface. That 

 the latter have not been inconsiderable, we are warranted in con- 

 cluding, as well from the corresponding effects in the neighboring 

 Mediterranean sea, where submarine volcanoes have caused from 

 time to time the emergence of several permanent islands,* as in 

 the signal marks which have been left in the mountain groups of 

 Palestine itself, in the fissures gashing them and furnishing une- 

 quivocal evidence of intense paroxysmal violence ; in the thermal 

 springs found in the Lebanon chain and the vicinity of the Lake 

 of Tiberias, and in the mineral products of volcanic origin, scat- 

 tered in places where no earthquakes have occurred within the 

 last ten centuries. 



I propose here only to recall some of the leading geological fea- 

 tures of a portion of Palestine, collecting from such reliable au- 

 thorities as I have had access to, information to supply the de- 

 ficiencies of my own notes made during a tour through the Holy 

 Land in the months of April and May, 1843. My object is rather 

 to furnish facts in aid of the speculations and investigations of 

 those who have pursued such inquiries more thoroughly, than to 

 follow out theories which an observation of those phenomena have 

 suggested to my own mind. 



1. General outlines and configuration of Palestine. 



In its most flourishing state, under the extended rule of David 

 and Solomon, Palestine embraced an extent of territory little larger 

 than that covered by the counties that border upon both sides of 

 the Hudson from New York to Albany ; its ordinary limits were 



* Santorin, an island six miles long, from one to three in width, and eight hun- 

 dred feet above the surface. Hiero, a small island, emerged 186 B. C. MicraKa- 

 meni in 1573. Nea Kameni, 1707. 



See Lyell's "Principles of Geology," Vol. II, p. 137, for the effects of volcanic 

 action in Greece, in submerging the cities of Helice and Bura; and elevating a 

 mountain four thousand feet high near Moderi, Sicily. 



