( 144 ) 
LIFiE IN THE DEAD SEA. 
; Kollupitiya. 
fSiR,— Your Kandy correspondent "Ignoraraas" 
is' anxious to know if there is any liind of 
life in tiie waters of this Sea ; or as it 
has been also called The Lake or Sea 
of London. Canon Tristram, F.K.S., says:— 
"Though no life, animal or vegetable, can 
possibly continue in the lake, there is, whefever, 
as on the whole North- East shore and in v9,rious 
spots on the West side, tresji water flows into the 
Lake, a positive exuberance of life to th6 waters 
edge." Josephus, the Jewish historian, calls it 
the lake Asphaltites, from the at)undance of 
bitumen found iti it ; also the Dead Sea, from 
ancient traditions that no living creature can 
exist in its stagnant waters, which are in the 
highest degree salt, bitter, and nauseous, and of 
such a degree of specific gravity as will enable 
a man to float on their surface without motion. 
The acrid saltness of its waters is much greater, 
than that of the Mediterranean on the West, and 
the Red Sea on the South, or any other sea. 
The saline particles in the water of the Ocean 
are 4 per cent, that of the Dead Sea contains 
26J per cent. Therefore, no fish can live or marine 
plants grow in it. But Moritz Wagner, in his 
travels in Persia, says :— " That the salt . and 
iodine of the waters — of the lake Urumiah — far 
surpasses those of the Dead Sea." He also describes 
the fact that while fish is not found in the 
Urumiah, there are crustaceous animalculie, such as 
madrepores,\y\ndi are said to have been in theDead 
Sea. The birds, which pass over the Dead Sea 
without injury, have long ago destroyed the belief 
•r ; TiV ( ■ - 
I.J :J ' 
V": 
that no living creature couM survive the banefivl 
atmosphere which hung upon its waters. Viewed 
merely from a scientifie point of view, the Dead 
Sea is one of the most remarkable spots of the 
world. It is thirteen-hundred feet below the 
level of the Mediterranean and Red Sea, and 
thus the most depressed sheet of water in the 
world; as the Lake Sir-c-kol, where the Oxus rises — 
"In hia high mountain cradle in Pamere " 
— is the most elevated. The Lake Sir-c-kol is 
15,000 feet above the level of the sea — that 
is, nearly as high as Mont Blanc— and is a 
sheet of water fourteen miles long and one mile 
broad, on the high table-land called by the 
natives " Bam-i-duniah," "the roof of the world" 
— a name not unfitly applied to the water-shed 
of the Indus and Oxus. — Yours truly, 
CHARLES A, KOCH. 
"Macmillan'"8 Ceylon Story.— The "Place 
of the Great Dead: A legend of Adam's Peak" 
narrated by T. S. describes a visit paid by the 
Whites to the place where elephants die, the 
said place being situated some two miles frooi 
the Peak and there he and his Sinhalese guide 
(Podosinho) w'itnessed the death of the huge 
animal. So great was the effect of the tiagie 
scene and its surroundings on them, that on 
leaving it they both swore that they would never 
show to any one the place they had discovered. 
The story is not a very probable one, though 
serves to accentuate the mystery that for so long 
had surrounded the death of our huge islanders, 
..ii'-.I 
