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taught us ? What fact have they brought to light ? The fact that the 
Valley of the Jordan, at least the greater part of it, and certainly the Dead 
Sea, is very considerably below the level of the Mediterranean. How many 
feet is it, Mr. Warington ? 
Mr. Warington. — 1,300 feet. 
Rev. W. Mitchell. — The level of the Dead Sea is 1,300 feet, as Mr. 
Warington admits, below the level of the Mediterranean. Now, I do not 
think that we have any positive record of the existence of this Dead Sea 
before the time of Abraham. I know some would maintain that the Bible 
gives no exact statement that the Dead Sea occupies the position of the 
cities of the plain ; but there is a generally received tradition that the Dead 
Sea owes its formation to the destruction of those cities, and I believe that 
universal traditions are generally founded upon fact. (Hear, hear.) Now, 
if the Dead Sea does owe its formation to the overthrow of the cities of the 
plain, who can tell us at what rate that enormous depression, of 1,300 feet 
below the level of the Mediterranean, was taking place ? It may have been 
a slow, or it may have been a rapid rate, and it may have been slow enough 
to account for all these beaches of marl and fresh-water shells, all the pro- 
ducts of the Jordan — 
Mr. Warington. — They are all above the level of the old cities to the 
extent of 200 feet. 
Rev. W. Mitchell. — There I join issue with Mr. Warington, and I 
say no one knows the site of the old cities — 
Mr. Warington. — They were in the plain, and not on the mountains. 
Rev. W. Mitchell. — What plain ? The plain described by Mr. 
Warington just now as a fertile plain ; not a salt or barren plain, but a 
well-watered plain ; a country to be envied ; one that Lot chose when he 
went and resided in the cities of the plain, because it was a fertile country, 
a goodly country, a country that Abraham allowed his nephew, Lot, to take, as 
it appeared to be the better portion. But what changes have taken place there 
since ! Whence this withered country — this awful sea, for it is an awful 
sea ? If any one would acquire an idea of the awful character of this sea, 
let him read Lynch’s account of it, who measured its depth — who plumbed 
it — who was, day by day, exposed to the fierce, burning sun, and to the 
smarting sensation of the salt vapours, and the sulphurous fumes, and all 
the other deadly emanations of this sea — who felt that he was in a “ cursed 
land ” — who tells you that no one could stay as he stayed there, without 
feeling that this was the kind of land that you would say, as it were, God’s 
breath had blasted for some fearful crime ! I think these are the words of 
Lynch, or something like them (I do not profess to quote his words accu- 
rately), but I know he does say that that is the place to which he would 
bring the infidel and the scoffer who would doubt the truths of Scripture. 
But what I want to point out is, that we must have had great changes going 
on, if these cities of the plain are to be sought underneath the Dead Sea. 
If that depression is still going on, is there no corresponding depression of 
the other parts of the country, and might not that be sufficient to accoimt 
for the change of the climate from cold to heat — viz., being depressed and 
