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geological survey of tlie environs of the Sea of Galilee has yet 
been made. 
The Valley South of the Sea of Galilee. 
10. The general geological structure of the Jordan valley, 
south of the Sea of Galilee, is evidently of the same age 
as the basin of the lake, or at least the upper part 
of the basin. The valley, however, presents some singular 
features. Its surface is mostly flat, varying from three to 
nine miles in breadth, and running along the steep mountain- 
ridges on each side, almost like a shore-line. Its bed is com- 
posed, so far as I could discover, of a thick alluvial deposit, 
covering for the most part very soft and recent horizontal 
calcareous strata. The present coating of the valley, therefore, 
is of a much more recent formation than its rocky sides and 
the mountain-chains adjoining ; and it would seem to have 
been deposited, during a long succession of ages, at the bottom 
of a lake, in the same way that deposits are being at present 
formed at the bottom of the Dead Sea. 
11. Another feature struck me as very remarkable. The 
river Jordan, as it is now, could have had nothing to do with 
the formation by erosion of the great valley through which 
it flows. It runs in a distinct ravine of its own, which it 
lias worn in a tortuous course, through the bed of the valley, 
from end to end. As compared with the valley, this ravine 
is of recent origin ; and it presents, along nearly its entire 
length, such an appearance as would lead to the conclusion 
that the river was at some former period much larger than it 
is now. 
12. I have, during several visits, closely examined about 
three-fourths of the ravine of the Jordan; its features differ 
at different points, and probably the most characteristic are 
at the section near Bethshean, and from Damieh, southward, 
to Jericho. The bed of the valley is, as I have said, level, 
having no visible incline towards the river. On looking across 
it, from the foot of the mountain -range, on cither side, the 
river is not seen at all, and the plain appeal’s unbroken ; but, 
on passing over it, one comes suddenly and unexpectedly to 
a ravine, varying from 50 to 150 feet in depth, and from 
200 to 700 yards in width. Its sides are cut down sharply 
through the upper alluvial coating and the underlying cal- 
careous strata; they are also deeply indented, and worn 
away by the action of winter rains and lateral streams, so that 
along each bank is a rim of white conical mounds ; and in 
some places the mounds stand two or three deep, their tops 
mostly uniform in height with the adjoining plain. 
