Notice of Active and Extinct Volcanos. 291 



sacred writers, especially of the prophets, were often drawn 

 from these physical occurrences.* The author has rendered 

 it very probable, that volcanic agency was the physical instru- 

 men, employed by the Almighty, to destroy the five cities of 

 the plain, that the Salt or Dead Sea arose either from the sub- 

 sidence of the plain or from the damming of the Jordan,! by 

 a current of lava; that the showers of fire and brimstone 

 were occasioned by the fall of volcanic ejections, and Mr. 

 Henderson, the celebrated missionary traveller in Iceland, 

 imagines that Lot's wife, lingering behind her friends, may 

 have been first suffocated, and then incrusted with saline and 

 other volcanic materials. 



" That the volcanic eruption which destroyed the cities of the 

 Pentapolis was accompanied by the flowing of a stream of lava, 

 may be inferred, (says our author,) from the very words of 

 scripture. Thus when Eliphaz reminds Job of this catastrophe, 

 he makes use of the following expressions, according to Hender- 

 son's translation of the passage : — 



Hast thou observed the ancient tract 



That was trodden by wicked mortals ? 



Who were arrested on a sudden, 



Whose foundation is a molten flood. 



Who said to God ; depart from us, 



What can Shaddai do to us ? 



Though he had filled their houses with wealth ; 



(Far from me be the counsel of the wicked !) 



The righteous beheld and rejoiced, 



The innocent laughed them to scom ; 



Surely their substance was carried away, 



And their riches devoured by fire. Job xxii. 15 — 20." 



" The Phlegrean fields, (in the words of Dr. Clarke,) and all 

 that can present an idea of volcanic destruction, form but a 

 feeble image of the frightful country through which I passed. 

 From the bridge of Jacob to Sassa, the whole ground is com- 

 posed of nothing but lava, basalt, and other volcanic produc- 

 tions ; all is black, porous, or carious ; it was like travelling 

 in the infernal regions. Besides these productions, which cov- 

 er the country, either in detached masses, or in loose strata, 

 the surface of the ground is entirely covered with loose volca- 

 nic stones, from three to four inches in circumference to a 

 foot in diameter, all equally black, porous, or carious ; as if 

 they had just come out of the crater. But it is particularly at 



* See Nah. i. 5, 6. Mic. i. 3, 4. Isai. xiv. 1, 3. Jer. iv. 25, 26. 

 t He supposes that the Jordan may have formerly flowed into the Mediterra- 

 nean or into the Red Sea. 



