hd PROCEEDIXGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCrETT. 



Jordan valley (the Glior, as it is called by tlie Arabs) led to the sup- 

 position that the salt lake had ouce, as a long inlet, been in com- 

 munication by the Arabah with the Eed Sea. Against this latter 

 hypothesis it was at once objected that no shells or marine deposits 

 of any kind have ever been found along the line of the supposed 

 inlet ; and latterly the barometrical measurements of various tra- 

 vellers have shown that the elevation of the central part of the 

 Arabah is so considerable as entirely to set aside such a proposition, 

 without the assumption of great subsequent disturbances of level. 

 The latest observations, those of M. Yignes, give the altitude of this 

 watershed as being no less than 787 feet above the sea. 



One of the most modern travellers of scientific experience, Dr. J. E.. 

 Eoth, whose numerous barometrical observations were calculated by 

 friends in Germany after his untimely death from illness in the 

 Antilebanon, has given a series of levels taken along the Arabah, 

 which also it is difficult to reconcile with the older theories. Thus 

 the height assigned by him to the main valley, where he entered it 

 from the southern pass which leads into the Wadi Musa, is given 

 at 640 feet, and at two hours' journey further south 570 feet, 

 above the sea*. 



Yet the same author, writing in March 1858, inclines to the 

 older hypotheses, guided, as it would appear, more by an adherence 

 to ancient traditions and by general appearances than by sound 

 geological observation. He believes that, without doubt, the Ara- 

 bah is the ancient bed of the Jordanf, that the great lake Asphal- 

 tites and the whole valley up to the sea of Tiberias were formed by 

 the crowning in of gigantic hollows produced by the dissolution of 

 beds of salt, and that the ciuasi volcanic phenomena to which old 

 tradition assigned the destruction of the cities of the plain were caused 

 by the combustion of strata of bituminous slate. Dr. Eoth, however, 

 was not aware of the obstacles which would be opposed to this view 

 by his own measurement; for he seems to regard the highest point of 

 the Arabah as being but a seven hours' camel's journey from the nor- 

 thern end of the Gulf of Arabah, at a salt marsh called Godian, which 

 he estimates at less than 200 feet (whilst the calculated results make 

 it but 106 feet) above the sea. His own levels, however, between this 

 and Ain Ghurundel, with those of other observers, seem to establish 

 the fact that the water-shed is higher by hundreds of feet. 



The only resource, therefore, of those who hold to either of the 

 above propositions was to suppose that the higher portion of the 

 Arabah had been raised by an elevation connected with the protru- 

 sion of certain porphyries which make their appearance at intervals 

 along the vaUey, as shown in Eussegger's map. 



* Prof. C. Kuhn's paper in Petermann's Geog, Mittheil. 1858, p. 3. 



t Since writing the above lines, I observethat the late Dr. Falconer con- 

 cluded that a narrow strait had once communicated between the Mediterranean, 

 near Antioch, and the Eed Sea at Akabah, and that the Jordan probably at 

 one time flowed into the Gulf of Akabah, — also that, simultaneously with the 

 upheaval of the Arabah ridge, the valley of the Jordan was depressed through 

 a violent mechanical convulsion. (Falconer's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 655.) 



