1856. J POOLE VISIT TO THE DEAD SEA. 203 



1. Notice of a Visit to the Dead Sea. By H. Poole, Esq. 

 [Forwarded from the Foreign Office by order of Lord Clarendon.] 



[Abstract.] 

 Mr. Poole went to this district to look for nitre, which was reported 

 to occur there ; but he met with none, and found reason to suppose 

 that the report was unfounded. The same word in Arabic means 

 "bitter or rock salt," as well as "nitre," hence possibly the erro- 

 neous information. Further, the cave (at Usdum) in which the nitre 

 was said to have occurred is called "the cave of the Gun-men," 

 not from the Arabs getting their nitre there for gunpowder, but as 

 the spot from which they watch for the crossing of the hostile tribes 

 across the plain. 



Mr. Poole and Mr. E. Mashallam spent nearly two days at Usdum, 

 going to several caves (in which fine stalactites of salt occur), climb- 

 ing nearly to the top of the mountain, and walking about the shore, 

 but in no instance could they find a deposit or even a sample of nitre. 

 Mr. Finn, H.M. Consul at Jerusalem, also informed Mr. Poole that 

 he had never seen any ; nor had the Sheik Aboo Daook and his men. 

 The Arabs generally make their own nitre by boiling the dung of 

 goats ; others scrape it off old walls or limestone-caves, but never in 

 any large quantity. 



The Arabs charge 60 piastres or 10 shillings for a camel-load of 

 salt, about 500 lbs., delivered in Jerusalem, and the purchaser pays 

 the Turkish government 15 piastres more for duty. Each camel 

 will make about twenty-four trips in a year, thus carrying altogether 

 12,000 lbs. a year. 



From Usdum Mr. Poole proceeded to El Lisan (the Peninsula), 

 and travelled all round it. The ridge of high land is highly im- 

 pregnated with sulphur ; but the nodules of native sulphur are very 

 rare. 



At the present time it would be almost impossible to do anything 

 on El Lisan, for the road between it and Usdum is open to the 

 attacks of four independent tribes of Bedouins, including the Sultan 

 of Kerak, over whom the Turkish government has no control. 



Previously to visiting Usdum, Mr. Poole made a trip to the 

 northern end of the Dead Sea. At Nebi Mousa (half-way from 

 Jerusalem to the Dead Sea), there is a quantity of bituminous shale 

 or " blind coal," from which ornaments are cut ; and a thick bed of 

 soil highly impregnated with sulphur occurs there. Nothing but 

 saline incrustations were found on the north shore of the Dead Sea. 



The author exhibited to the Meeting a series of the specimens of 

 sulphur, sulphurous earths, salt, and other minerals from the vicinity 

 of the Dead Sea, together with recent natural-history specimens, 

 volcanic and other rock-specimens, and some tertiary and cretaceous 

 fossils* from the district visited. 



* For descriptions and figures of a series of fossils from this and other districts 

 in Palestine, see Conrad's ' Appendix to Lieut. Lynch's Official Report of the U.S. 

 Expedition to explore the Dead Sea and the River Jordan.' 4to. Baltimore^ 

 1852.— Ed. 



