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I visited Palmyra more than twenty years ago.* A portion of 
this interesting region was explored by the late Mr. Tyrwhitt 
Drake, and also by the Count de Vogue, who has given some 
beautiful drawings of its ruined churches and houses in his 
splendid work, St/rie Gentrale. 
2. At present, however, I wish to treat of the central section 
only of the great Syrian valley. It is more deeply interesting 
than either of the others, and it presents most important 
problems to the historian and the physical geographer, 
problems which have never yet been satisfactorily solved, and 
which, I believe, are not unworthy of notice in a meeting of 
the Victoria Institute. This section forms the bed of the 
river Jordan and the Dead Sea, and is in many respects 
unique. For a length of about 150 miles it is below the level 
of the ocean, and along the shores of the Dead Sea its surface 
has a depression of no less than 1,290 feet. It would seem 
that the name Jordan was intended to denote this remarkable 
physical characteristic. It signifies “ the descender,” and is 
most applicable, whether we consider the rapidity of the cur- 
rent, or the depth of the valley through which it runs. From 
whatever part of the country its banks are approached, the 
descent is long and steep. That this is the true etymology of 
the name appears highly probable from an incidental remark in 
Joshua iii. 16, where, in describing the effects of the opening 
of a passage for the Israelites, the word used for the “ coming 
down” of the waters is radically the same as the name of the 
river. Such a play upon a name is common in Hebrew. 
3. The snows that cover Hei’mon during the winter, and 
that still cap its glittering summit during the hottest days of 
summer, are the real sources of the Jordan. They feed its 
perennial fountains; and they supply, through a thousand 
channels, those superabundant waters which make the river 
“ overflow all his banks all the time of harvest” (Josh. iii. 15). 
But it has two historical sources, one on a terrace of Hermon, 
at the foot of a cliff, beside the ruins of Csesarea-Pkilippi, most 
probably the place where our Lord uttered those well-known 
words which have given rise to so much controversy — “Thou 
art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the 
gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. xvi. 18). 
Perhaps, as Dean Stanley observes, the very rock impending 
over the fountain, and on which a temple of Pan stood, may 
have suggested the metaphor. The other fountain is four 
miles distant in the valley. There is here a cup-shaped mound, 
* Five Years in Damascus , i. 197. 
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