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NOW ON EXHIBITION AT THE APOLLO ROOMS, 410 BKOADWAY.

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W A TOWN-SEND I.ATR SrUtNIJER AND TOWNSESD,
¦ ¦ ' 222 BRUADWAY. 1858.

reil iii;(.|irrIinK In .\ct of Congre<!S In the year 1858, by E. TKliYt.
ill the Clerk's Offlce ofthe Soulherii District for th= SouUi'-'ni
nistnct of New York.

•M

7^
TO
KEEISTE RICEC^RDS, ESQ.,
Whii.se pil.ijriiiiage to the Eastern lands lias affoi'ded him a well improved
opportunity of visiting tlie scenes, which are the subject of these strictures, and of
wlidsu generous 'vorth the friend and artist cherish a living- recollection ; the.se
s|i('C'.ii!'i '¦••>?, as a token of gratitude, and in the hope tliat their crudeness will not
dclruct fiom the sincerity of thetribute, are inscribed.
With alTectionate i-e.*pect,
E. TKOYE

THE DE^D SEA.

AND

THE RUmS OF SODOM A^D GOMOEllAH.

Considering Syria, even under the human view, and without reference
to the fact that, in its general geography, it bosoms the spot where God
exhibited the highest manifestations of his power; — the spot where he
made his covenants with man, and carried out the scheme of his sal
vation ; — the spot which was the cradle of Christianity, and the fastness
from which Mahometanism, its baffled foe, sallying from the deserts of
Arabia, advanced to the once imminent conquest of Europe ; no country,
perhaps, has a better claim to absorb the vigils of the learned, and
engage the speculations of the philosopher, who would study the organic
laws, and inquire into the ultimate destinies of the human race upon
earth. Generally interesting, however, as is that region, no portion of it
is equally so as that which is embraced in Palestine, and of Palestine
itself, if we except the village of Bethlehem, the humble birth-place of
the Saviour, and the heights of Calvary, ¦ where a most consummate
treason was lost in the mercies of a world-redeeming sacrifice ; no site of
that Holy Land appeals more earnestly to our feelings than the Lake,
over whose deceptive waters beetle the darkly-tinted mountains of Ammon
and of Moab.
That lake is the Dead Sea — the mysterious sea, which, bafiQing the
speculations of science, as it has mocked the jeers of scepticism, still
stretches its expanse in lurid warnings, since the day when Divine
justice passed in anger over the buried plain, which it now occupies.
This, the second physical catastrophe which the Bible mentions as the
result of God's visitation of the perversity of man, turns upon the pro
bable engulfment of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Tsebo'im, the guilty
cities, which could not number even ten just men. They may well be
fancied, nestled in their prosperity within the magnificent valley of
Siddim, and indulging in sensuous revelries, in a land which the Jordan
blessed with the tributes of a bountiful nature. But the picture was one
of death lurking beneath a bed of flowers ; for that richly-hued Soil, no
doubt, owed its fertility to the underground fires by which it was under
mined. Beneath this fairy land, sulphur, and bitumen, and all volcanic
matters were seething against the hour which was to consign to eternal
oblivion the guilty creatures who, " in pride, fulness of bread, abundance
of idleness, neglecting to help the poor and needy, and the commission of
abomination," had so long disregarded the demands of virtue and
trampled under foot the power of the Almighty. But on a fatal day,

2 THE DEAD SEA AND THE EUINS OP
when infinite mercy had at length wearied with the guilt ; " when the
cry of them had waxed great before the face of the Lord;" they were
adjudged, and terrible was the execution of the doom. Listen to the
words, still muttering the echoes of God's expended wrath : " The Lord
rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire, from the
Lord out of heaven ; and he overthrew those cities and all the plain, and
all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground."
In connection with this sudden overthrow, immediately succeeding the
latest and most brutal indulgence of the very crimes, which had shaken
the longanimity of God — the exercise of his patience in the consciousness
of his power — there is something that rises up in awful solemnity. So
solemn and so awful that the mind, even now sinks in the contemplation.
" The Lord rained brimstone and fire, from the Lqrd out of Heaven."
In his commentaries on Genesis, one of the lights of the Divine Church,
as he was one of the masters of tbe human intellect, insists on the peculiar
language of that text. It will be borne in mind that, of the three who
came to Abraham, the Book mentions the Lord, and his two companions
— the Lord, who remained with Abraham, and the attending- essences,
whom he despatched to the dwelling-place of Lot. The mind of the
commentator immediately seizes upon the marked distinction between
the Lord, visitant on earth, and " the Lord in heaven." The very idea,
which rose up with the utterance of the word of Genesis, Elohim. They
the Strong God, recurs to his mind, and brings it to that of the great
Trinity. And imraediately and aa,-ain rise up in his mind the Father, the
Power, and the Will, exerting both power and will ; the Son, the Eternal
Word, carrying out the will of the power ; and the Holy Spirit, scatter
ing mercy and love, or justifying the long-threatened amercement of
inveterate guilt. Instinct with this idea, the profound Hales, speaking
of the catastrophe, saya : " In the account of the overthrow, there is a
distinction, of persons in the Godhead marked in the original, which is
ambiguous in the English Bible. The former was the visible Lord — the
Image, or representative of the Invisible, whom " no man hath seen at
any tirae, nor can see, nor ever saw his shape, nor ever heard his voice,"
as we learn from the former, who only could expound to mortals the
nature and the will of the Father, save the Son and he to whom the
Son is willing to reveal [Hiw.] "
This exertion of supernal powers, the traditions of the past and the
belief of the faithful have concurred to admit as the origin of the sheet of
waters, more commonly known as the Dead Sea. In the Bible it is
designated under various names. The Pentateuch calls it the Salt Sea
the Sea of Sodom, the Sea of the Plain, because situated in the o-reat
plain of the Jordan, which is in part known as Arabah. Some of thelater
prophets, such as Joel, Ezekiel, and Zachariah, call it the Eastern Sea
the Sea of the Desert. The Greeks and Romans speak of it as Lake
Asphaltitis, from the floating bitumen which it has periodicallv deposited
upon its shores. Its present and more usual appellation of Dead Sea it
derives from the writings of Eusebius and of St. Jerome. From subsequent
and confused traditions, no doubt, the Arabs designate it under the
form of Bahr-Louth, and from the circumstance, it is said, of Lot, the
nephew of Abraham, having dwelt in its vicinity. Although there be an
interesting tradition of the Arabs, which connects the name of Lot with
the sea, in the sense of the written Word of God ; yet we are inclined to
think that Bahr-Louth is but a corruption of Bahr-el-Mouth, literally

SODOM AND GOMORRAH. «5
the Lake of Death. So easy is the suppression of the letter m in rapid
pronunciation from the word mouth — pronounced moot — ^and so natural
the fusion of the article el into the remainder of the syllable, so as to
make the word read Louth; that there seems good reason to believe that
the designation, as it now stands in vulgar use among the Arabs, means
in reality the Sea of Death. This belief is sustained by the fact that
the Turks, who treasure the same traditions aud hold the same faith as
do the Arabs, call it Eulu-Den-yzi, which signifies exactly the same
thing. So far as the name of Dead Sea is concerned, it was abidingly
conferred by St. Jerome, who lived almost within sight of its margin for
many a year of reflection and prayer. He tells us, in his commentary on
the forty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel, that he so terms it because it
bosoms no living thing, and he adds : "Indeed, and. to the letter, up to
this time, nothing that breathes and moves can be found in this sea, on
account of its excessive bitterness ; not even shells, small worms, eels,
and other living species, with the minute forms of which we are better
acquainted than we are with their names. Finally, if the Jordan, swollen
by the rains, should carry fishes along, as it flows into the Sea, they
immediately die, and float ou the sluggish waters."*
Various are the opinions as to the causes that gave origin to the lake.
Some maintain that it pre-existed the destruction of the doomed cities.
Others that it was the simple result of volcanic agency. Others again,
that this or some other subterranean agency, combined with the fiat of
God's decree, gave rise to the sea. To this last opinion, sustained by the
language of Scripture, all our better convictions incline. The fire from
heaven kindled the fiery elements of earth, and all the ignitible substances
scattered over its surface or smouldering within its caverned depths.
These welled up in a burning, destructive torrent, until they had swept
every thing before them. Next, the waters of the Jordan, which had
until then, in all probability, flowed to the waters of the Gulf of Araby,
checked in their usual courses and diverted, by the convulsions of the soil,
from, their natural flow, spread out in one invading sheet, covering the
theatre of iniquities, which had silenced the mercies of God in the loud
demands of his long deferred justice. They were engulphed in the great
chasm, which had just yawned from the midst of the table-land of Canaan.
Instead of the smiling plain, there rose up a hazy sheet of waters as heavy
as liquid metal through which, if we are to believe the fancies of Josephus,
the traveler may still catch the upward reflection of the impious cities.
This Lake, as already observed, has received a variety of names ; but
none, certainly, so vigorous in its import and so fearful in truth, as that
of the Dead Sea. The traveler who flits along its shores, views a pic
ture of desolation and gloom, which sadly exemplify the record of Holy
Writ. All pabulum of earth has indeed been blotted out, where two
chains of mountains, inclosing within their dull red walls 'a long basin,
scooped out of argillaceous soil, mixed with layers of bitumen and salt,
heave up their scathed and lifeless front. The salt, continually trans
uding through that soil, barely allows the growth of a few stunted and
* Eevera, juxt& literam, hiic usque nihil, quod spiret et poasit incedere, prs
amaritudine nimia, in hoc marl reperiri potest ; nee cocUeolae quidem parvique
vermiculi et anguillse et csetera animantium, sive serpentum genera quorum
magis corpuscula possumus nosse quam nomina. Denique si Jordanns, auctus
imbribus pisces, illiic influens, rapuerit. statim moriuntur et pinguibus aquis
supernatant.

4 THE DEAD SEA AND THE ETHNS OP
languishing shrubs, which, vainly calling for the sap-giving moisture, only
receive the dry and burning dust of the narrow shore. The mass of those
motionless waters, which, while rolled as the tide of the Jordan, are
sweet as the gushings of fresh springs, become as putrid as the soil on
which they break, but which they may not redeem from hopeless barren
ness. Taste them, and they are more intensely salt than any known
waters are; go into them, and they are heavier and may not submerge
the bodies which part their bitter expanse. Few but maintain that they
bear no living thing within their sepulchral depths; and yet they are as
limpid as crystal, and as blue as the tide of the neighboring sea. Shall
we then wonder that the traditions of the past, the testimony of man,
the awe of nations, should have associated it with the idea of death,
when all is really dead within and around its compass ? It may be not
uninteresting to compare, with the language of St. Jerome, the words used
fourteen hundred years after him, by a traveler, whose testimony is not
less authoritative and not likely to be called in question e,ven by the .
skeptic. This is the language of Volney, in his work on the physical con
dition of Syria: "Lake Asphaltitis alone contains nothing living, or even
vegetating. There is neither fish in its waters, nor verdure on its shores;
but it is false that its atmosphere is so tainted that birds cannot fly across
its waters with impunity. It is no unfrequent occurrence that swallows
will skim its surface to dip the water necessary to the building of their
nests. The true cause of the absence of vegetation and life is found in
the salt bitterness of the waters, infinitely more intense than that of com
mon seas. The soil which surrounds it, impregnated with this saline
quality, will produce no plant; the very air pervaded by it, through the
process of evaporation and saturated by the vapors of sulphur and bitu
men, is not calculated to feed vegetation. Hence the appearance of death
which exists around the lake."
The deadly effects of the waters upon animal life, at least that or
ganization of life of which water is the more natural medium — though
vouched for by St. Jerome, Volney and others, is not absolutely admitted
by all who have visited the shores of the Dead Sea. Chateaubriand's
attention was attracted by a murmuring noise on the waters of the Lake;
and the Arabs, the imperturbable Arabs, like all Cicerows, supplied
with the fitting fiction, told him that it proceeded "from a multitude of
fishes leaping on the shore!" Pococke, too, "had heard it stated" at
Jerusalem, that a missionary had seen fishes in Lake Asphaltitis. Such
data, however, are of too vague a nature to repel the better founded
opinions of both ancient and modern writers on this head. From Van
de Velde, who last visited it with scientific views, back to St. Jerome,
who dwelt for years within ten miles of its shores, we can safely say:
"Revera,, jtoxta literam, nihil quod spiret" — indeed, and literally, there is
in it nothing that breathes. It is true that Hasselquist and Maundrell
discovered shefls on the margin of the Lake; but they were no doubt
those of fresh water helices, or perchance some of the melanopsidm met by
De Saulcy, and still found in the neighboring springs. One thing positive,
however, is that De Buten had several quarts of the water conveyed from
the Dead Sea to the shores of the Mediterranean, where fishes, taken on
the spot from the latter sea and in the full vigor of life were put in ves
sels containing the water from the Lake. Not one of them outlived the
time of half a minute. Dr. Grassi, the chief of the medical staff in the
Sanitary service, who then happened to be in Palestine, proceeded to

SODOM AND GOMORRAH. 5
•dissect the dead fish. The organs of digestioo exhibited no perceptible
injury; from which he inferred that death had been the result of asphyxia,
or that some latent poison of the waters had acted fatally on the nervous
apparatus. When we come to reflect upon this strange, physical nature, and the
eccentric forms which it reveals; we more readily explain why its phe
nomena have, in the mind of nations, assumed their marvelous shape, and
how a few fabulous embellishments may have been added to the extra
ordinary circumstances, which actual and honest explorations have
marked. Hence the belief of many for a length of time, that huge stack-
clouds of smoke still rose frora the waters of the Lake, as witnesses of the
still enduring conflagration of the cities imraersed by the wrath of Heaven.
Hence the belief of some that, as in the reekings of the Avernian marsh,
birds were smitten in their mid-air flight and stifled by the exhalations of
the deadly Lake. From the days of Tacitus down to those of De Saulcy,
no one, who has visited those inhospitable shores and bathed in the waters,
has experienced any other effects than those which result from their great
specific gravity, which allows persons, even untrained in the art of the
swimmer, to maintain any position in them without danger or risk. The
reader of history is not ignorant of the whim of Vespasian, who, says
Josephus, wishing to enjoy an exhibition of the buoyant qualities of the
waters, had men cast in them with their hands tied behind their backs.
To this we may. add the assertion of Tacitus: Periti, imperitiijue nandi,
perinde attolluntur — those skilled, as well as those unskilled, in the art of
swimming, are alike buoyed up. The repeated experiments of modern
explorers are not wanting to confirm these testimonials of antiquity.
Among other instances, Van Egmont relates that, having attempted to
stand perpendicularly in them, he was corapelled to apply all his strength
and that he theu succeeded in moving through them, as 'on solid ground,
without resort to any of the exertions, which fresh waters demand.
From the chemical analysis of the waters of the Lake, made by Dr.
Marcet, iu 1808, and subsequently by Dr. Grassi, by the latter's
especially, it appears that their specific gravity is 1.21, or one-fifth
greater than that; of distilled waters. As to the influence of the vapors
on birds, .we have already stated that it is as little noxious as that of the
waters themselves upon the human frame. It were but surplusage to
advert to the fact that flocks of wild pigeons and of Egyptian geese have
been known to fly across the Lake with impunity; while Maundrell, De
Saulcy and Van der Velde have seen ducks disporting on the surface of
the waters — a fact, which, however, it must be remarked, occurred near
the inlet of the fresh waters of the Jordan into the sea.
The smoke or rather the appearance of it, does in reality exist; but it
has no more substance than that of the thick vapors, resulting from the
prodigious evaporation caused by the burning heat of those regions Such
an evaporation as to be estimated at nine millions of gallons of water per
day. The consumption of water, which the Jordan supplies, amounts
daily, according to sorae calculations to the enormous quantity of six
millions of gallons. The latter quantity, therefore, is supposed to be
furnished by the Jordan and the balance by the tributary torrents which
the lake receives from the East and from the West. The scientific men
whom we have mentioned and among them De Buten and Captain Callier
of the staff of the French corps of Engineers, when alluding to the density
of the waters of the Dead Sea, state that any quantity of them contain

6 THE DEAD SBA AND THE EUINS OF
more than one-fourth of salt. So abundant is this material that every
thing about the shore is incrusted with it, and that its continual accre
tions tower into peaks; while, in view of these, Strabo might almost com
mand belief when he asserts that, in his days, houses might be seen built
out of salt! As to the Lake itself, after the errors of accumulated ages,
in reference to its actual extent aud depth, Lynch's exploration — one of
those scientific undertakings, which, within the last twenty years, have
authorized our country to write her name high on the rolls of renown —
has dispelled all doubt on the subject. Its navigation and soundings by
the distinguished American explorer have proved it to be some forty
miles in length, with a breadth varying from eight to ten miles, while
the bottom presents a singular inequality of depth, varying from thirteen
hundred to thirteen feet!
And we might now close this portion of our remarks, but that we
think that of the Dead Sea fruits, a favorite illustration with poets from
Milton to Byron, some mention may appropriately be made here. The
idea of fruits iu the neighborhood of the Dead Sea, luscious to the eye
but ashes to the touch, is derived from Josephus. Many a curious trav
eler, and many a pious pilgrim, no doubt, has sought for the wondrous fruit.
'¦ Which grew
Near that bituminotis lake where Sodom stood,"
and which, typifying in its outward appearance, the once luxuriant con
dition of the spot, in its inner ashes, emblems the present desolation
written on its vicinage. Some have utterly doubted its existence; while
others, like Hasselquist, and like De Saulcy, no doubt following the
former, hold it to be the solanum melongena of Linnasus, which is found
abundantly in the neighborhood of the Lake, and which, upon pressure,
puffs out a dusty matter when it has been perforated by insects. Chateau
briand, quoting the opinions of various other travelers, thus expresses his
own: " Here am I, sorely puzzled; for I think that I also have discovered
those much sought for fruits. The shrub which bears them grows every
where for eight or ten miles frora the mouth of the Jordan. It is a
thorny plant — :its leaves are small and far apart, and its fruit, in color
and form, is quite like the smaller lemon of E,:.;ypt. Before maturity, thf
fruit swells with a salt and corrosive juice, and when it is withered and
dried up, it yields a quantity of minute, blackish seeds, which may be
compared to ashes, which have a bitter aud peppery taste."
Here these strictures might well terminate; but that the explora
tions of the last four or five years have renewed interest in the question,
and surrounded it with eleraents of doubtful novelty. The ancients enter
tained but imperfect notions of the Asphaltic Lake ; and the ignorance of
the moderns, for a long while, did not much fall back of the ignorance of
the ancients. Later inquirers, better prepared for the arduous task, have
undertaken to work out the mystery which still seems to hang about this
unparalleled land. Since the days of the unfortunate Seetzen and Costi
gan, other hardy explorers— among the most illustrious of whom we are
proud to number oiu- own Robinson, Smith, Lynch, and Anderson  have
visited this theatre of a most awful catastrophe. 'We deeply honor these
missionaries of science and truth — we acknowledge all the gratitude which
is due to faithful researches and intelligent efforts — ^we appreciate the
high results which they have achieved; but we cannot help thinking, in
spite of De Sauloy's me, me, adsum qui fed, that the darkness in whieh the

SODOM AND QOMOERAH.

physical question of the Dead Sea is involved, has not been altogether
dispelled. A fact, which stands above all the inquiries of travelers and
the exegesis of Scripture, is that this world-known Lake was once the
theatre of a natural and supernatural convulsion at once. The very re
markable character of its waters, entirely unlike those of other well-known
salt lakes; the singular phenomena whieh they exhibit; the barrenness of
its eastern and western margins; the narrowness of the space between
those margins and the base of the rocks that frown down upon them ; the
unapproachable desolation of its southern extremity — a desolation such,
that all who come within its gloom are struck into stupefaction — each
and all of these, taken in connection with the exercise of God's power,
converge to point out a fearful physical catastrophe, working out the ends
of an Almighty decree !
Yet the learned have hesitated in the conclusion whether there was any
connection between the event recorded in the Scriptures and the exist
ence of the Lake itself. Some have held that, as the basin of the Dead
Sea was a reservoir for the waters of the Jordan and other streams,
the Lake must have been coetaneous with those streams; that the theory
of Cellarius, according to whom the Jordan must have previously ex
pended its waters in the Arabian Gulf, is inadmissible, because the As
phaltic Lake, on its southern extremity, receives the waters of a stream
running counter to the waters of the Jordan; and hence they have con
cluded that the Lake must have existed before the local convulsion inti
mated in Genesis; in other words, that the Lake occupies its originally
determined site, and that the Pentapolis was spread out along its shores,
and not over any portion of soil, now bosomed in its depths.
Others, on the contrary, have supposed — and such is the opinion of
Michaelis, the learned arch^ologiat, and of Buschiug, an authoritative
geographer — that the principles of physical science, and the warrant of
Holy Writ, can be easily reconciled on this question of the Dead Sea.
Resting on the text of the Scriptures, which states that the valley of Sid
dim — implying that it subsequently became the " Salt Sea," or the As
phaltic Lake — contained "slime-pits," or springs of bitumen, scattered
over a great extent; and on the fact that this valley of Siddiin — which,
by the by, means nothing less or more than a " woodland vale'' — was pro
bably, as in the land of Egypt, irrigated by a number of canals; they
came to the conclusion that a portion of the waters of the Jordan, after
feeding those canals, formed a subterranean lake, with a like passage, and
that on the dies irrn, the day of wrath, when the fire rained dowu from
heaven had kindled into flame those springs of bitumen over various
points of the territory, the soil gave way in the terrible conflagration, and
with it, sank the guilty cities within the waters, that burst their central
prison in the earth, and whieh, enlarged by the diverted courses of the
Jordan, expauded to usurp the sunken surface.
Such an hypothesis might, a few years ago, have still appeared both
fanciful and gratuitous. And yet, it is not without some degree of sub
stance, if we rely on the opinion of a very learned traveler, who might
seem disposed to adopt it, with certain modifications, warranted by his
own conscientious inquiries. According to Dr. Robinson, there seems to be
more reasons than one for believing that some portion, at least, of the
Lake, covers the region once known as the vale of Siddim. In the flrst
place, he has not failed to observe that the appearance of the southern
portion of the Dead Sea is entirely different from that of the northern

8 THE DE.\.D SEA AND THE EUINS OP
portion, from which it is nearly separated by a peninsula, which all but
divides it into two sections. The sea in the southern portion is of little
depth — a fact substantiated by Captain Lynch's soundings; and if, in a
south-west direction, there be found ai great heap of salt, some two hun
dred feet high, known as the promentory of UsdoTn, it is no less certain
that its borders, on the east and south-east are level and bare. Seen from
the western mountains, it looks like the mouth of some great river after
the receding of the tide'. In the second place, the country is decidedly
volcanic, and liable to earthquakes. Fresh traces of this may be found in
the region of the Sea of Tiberias, not far removed from its locality. In
the third place the bitumen, which is by many supposed to be less abun^
dant than it was in former times, is not found in great quantities, unless
at the southern portion of the Lake. Wherever noticed floating at the
surface, it has ever been as the result of some internal convulsion of na
ture. After the earthquakes of 1834 and of 1837, tho Arabs, we learn,
collected large quantities of bitumen, which the wind had impelled to the
shore, and of which they disposed in the public marts.
Now, what repellant idea can there be between the fire " rained out of
the Lord in heaven" — the only means of destruction mentioned in the
Holy Word — and, without disparagement of the authority of that Word,
the association of an auxiliary, volcanic agency ? Is it so very improb
able that both were combined to kindle, into engines of destruction, the
co-acervations of bitumen that had been collecting for centuries about the
pits, of which the Scriptures speak ? But as those springs were nume
rous — as the bitumen is sometimes known even to run out of the fissures
of the rocks — so must their yield have been abundant, and hence we may
be allowed to suppose that, spreading underground and blending with the
soil — of which their broad stratifications constituted a secondary layer —
they must have converted the territory of the Pentapolis into an elemen
tal bed of subterranean fires. Hence, from their igniting through the fire
from heaven, the destruction of 'the valley of Siddim — its depression and
obliteration. — and the formation of the Asphaltic Lake, both by the ascend
ing fountains from the cavernous depths, and by the invading waters of
the Jordan's tide. Indeed, whether we admit a depression of the valley,
or a volcanic convulsion, the result must probably have been the same—
the creation of the basin of the Dead Sea. The opinion of geologists, who
now consider bitumen as an indirect volcanic product, in the same way
that they do deposits of mineral salt, gaseous eruptions, and hot and ther
mal springs, corroborates the conjectures of this hypothesis. Hence, if
we mistake not, Leopold de Buch, one of the leading intellects in geolo
gical science, upon consultation by Dr. Robinson, sustained his theory in
its essential points.
But there is another supposition, which may be called the philological
hypothesis. Reland, a man who secured from his cotemporaries the appela-
tion of " a living miracle of erudition," and who was averse neither to
controversy nor paradox, assumed the task of proving, against received
opinions, that the Dead Sea does not cover the locality of the Pentapolis.
It is no matter for astonishment that this idea, admitted by many, should
have startled the accurate perceptions of Michaelis, one of the safest and
most indefatigable investigators of questions of this character. Among
other cogent reasons, Michaelis insists upon the folly of the founders of
the Pentapolis should they, in building their cities, have preferred the
mere bases of burning mountains to that " woodland vale," so fertile and

SODOM AND GOMORRAH.

so well watered that, in spite of the heat of the climate, some commenta
tors have fixed upon it as that portion of the land of Canaan where God
had constructed the earthly Eden. In addition to this, let us suppose
that the Lake had always existed— that the cities were originally built at
points on its margin — that the configuration of the land, less its character
of desolation and the overthrow of the cities, was not affected by the
mandate of -heaven; — where could the nomadic portion of the people have
found room for their thousands of pasturing herds and flocks ? Would it
have been on the narrow ledges, between the mountains and the. shore,
even admitting them to have been covered with richest vegetation before
the catastrophe ? Indeed, judging of the country by its present state,
what is recorded of the opulent tribes which tenanted it at one time,
might well seem a phantasm and a dream. Almost everywhere the eye
wanders over deserts and rocks; — lifeless and stony soils, stricken with
perpetual barrenness — scattered tribes with bare means of existence.
This is not the land once flowing with milk aud honey — the land of the
palm, the pomgranate, and the vine, which knew no wastes and no bar
rens; but was covered with a great population, and waving with plente
ous crops. Indeed, indeed, the curse of God is upon it; or rather, it
broods over the lethal waters, that have usurped its place in the consum
mation of a rigorous decree. All these things Malte-Brun knew. He
had consulted Michaelis, and yet, unmoved by the solid reasoning of a
truly acute mind, he preferred leaning to the paradoxical opinions of Re-
land. Now, on this track, marked out by Reland and followed by Malte-
Brun, De Saulcy evidently entered ~ on his unquestionably interesting
visit to the Dead Sea and the Bible lands.
But this new exploration, far from tending to throw light on the ques
tion whether, or not, the Pentapolis was buried under the waters of the
Asphaltic Lake, has accumulated difficulties about the subject. In what
light it is viewed, by the French savant, will amply appear from the fol
lowing series of questions: " Upon what basis rests the interpretation
produced against my opinion ? In what book, in what narrative, has
the catastrophe of the Pentapolis been so described as to allow, for a mo
ment, the supposition that the condemned cities were overwhelmed under
the Lake ? I cannot guess what dreaming commentator has originated
the fable, I have analyzed in a short inquiry." Though not very forcibly
struck by the point of these interrogatories, we still bow with respect be
fore the source from which they come. A writer, who belongs to one of
the most celebrated bodies, that ever sat as an exponent of human science;
a man, who, by virtue of more than one claim, has acquired the right of
sitting in that body; — a tourist, who has explored the shores of the Dead
Sea and, not damaged by the accurate learning of Arab Sheikhs, has de
termined the precise localities of Sodom and Gomorrah on the margins
of the Dead Sea, when thirty centuries of ignorance had dreamed of thera
beneath its wave; is undoubtedly entitled to put such questions, and put
them with the tone of defiance, which the consciousness of great powers
lawfully warrants. Yet is there not something of scientific supercilious
ness in thus handling an opinion now venerable with the hoar of antiqui
ty ? Nakedly to repel that opinion, is to assume that it finds no avail in
the learning of Michtelis, Busching, Rosenmuller, and Quatremere.
None, in the corroboration — though but partial— of our own Robinson
and of our own Lynch; the former, from the French savant's decree of
merit, " the author of the best Journey to Judea," the latter, the only

10 THE DEAD SEA AND THE RUINS OF
real explorer of the Dead Sea; and all of them, critics or judges, equal
at least to Reland. Ask him, by virtue of what authority he thus sum
marily settles scriptural doubts and geological questions of extreme deli
cacy, and he answers: "The early authorities unanimously establish
that the towns, fallen under the curse of the Almighty, never were over
whelmed under the icaters of the Lake !" But is it so very certain that
this unanimity does exist? Where is this unanimous establishment to be
found? Might it not involve some salutary doubt ?
Up to something like a century ago — that is, up to the day when Re
land favored the world with his criticisms, which may be not disparaged
by the name of paradoxes — the passage of Scripture, which says that the
Kings of the Five Cities came together in the vale of Siddim, " which is
the Salt Sea," clearly meant that, previous to the eversion of those cities,
that is 1913 years B.C., the place was the vale of Siddim; and that,
some 450 years afterwards, when Moses was penning the record of the
fact, Siddim had ceased to be the woodland vale to become the Salt
Sea; — in other words that, in the days of the Hagiographer, the Asphal
tic Lake occupied the location of what had been the valley of Siddim.
Now, in order to prove that the cities were not in the valley of Siddim,
and that, even if the valley had been converted into the Dead Sea, the
cities could not have been buried under its waters, the Batavian critic
meets the statement of the Scripture in this form: " Since it is stated
that the Kings of the Pentapolis met together in the vale of Siddim, it
necessarily follows that this valley was quite distinct from the five cities
themselves!" Reland does not draw the farther conclusion, which I draw
for him, namely; therefore, the Pentapolis was not situated in the valley
of Siddim ; but his object is, nevertheless, as perceptible as his reasoning
is false. The admiration of the last century declared him to be a "mira
cle of erudition." I am not sure that he can hope for the wonder of ours,
save at the monstrosity of his logic. The Five Cities distinct from the
valley of Siddim! And why not? So is New York City distinct from
New York State ; and is not the city situated within the limits of the
State ? And so are St. Louis, Memphis and Vicksburg distinct from the
Mississippi vafley; and are they not situated within the valley itself? A
philologist of some acuteness has answered this weighty objection of Re-
land's by the simple remark that it could not be from behind their walls,
or in their isolated positions, that the Kings could hope to defend them
selves; and hence it was quite natural that they should join at some point
of their territory — that is, some portion of the valley of Siddim, not
covered by their city sites. Had Mr. De Saulcy looked more shrewdly
into this trifling question of strategy, he might perhaps have found that
his reasons were not quite so cogent as to justify him in exclaiming that:
" the illustrious Reland, with his usual tact, had thoroughly perceived
that the cities of the Pentapolis must stand on the Shore of the Dead
Sea, and that, if that region were fully explored, their ruins would still
be found." Following, no doubt, this intimation of Reland's, he, with the
not contemptible help of Arab learning, has defined the exact locality of
Sodom and Gomorrah. For fear that his discovery might rest but on a
frail assurance, he has resorted to the Legendaries of the early Church
for the authority that Sodom was once a Bishop's See. This fact, it had
been stated in the course of the last century, was established by the re
cord of the first council of Nicasa. So extraordinary and improbable had
the assertion seemed to the " criticisms" of Reland, the " Magnus Apollo"

SODOM AND GOMOEEAH. 11
in Dead Sea questions, that he forthwith declared it to fie the work
of some pious fraud. Since modern learning, however, has given us the
translation of the Cophtic version of the acts of the Council, it may be grati
fying to the world to know that doubt were folly, and that a holy personage
is mentioned, therein, as " Bishop of Sodom." As it is more than question
able, however, that the blasted city, in its resurrection from a bed of brim
stone and bitumen, should have been converted into a repenting and
Christian city; De Saulcy is inclined to view this Bishop as one of those,
who are known as bishops in partibus infiddium, without any See attached
to their dignity. Indeed it were, under all circumstances, a qnaint idea
to have reared a Christian diocese on a spot, on which God has written
the story of his wrath. We can, however, appreciate De Saulcy's zeal in
repelling the idea that there was an actual Sodom for this Bishop, or an
actual Bishop for this Sodom; for in that case the ruins of such a city,
which may have existed fifteen hundred years before our times, might
throw some doubt on the ruins of the Sodom, destroyed some three thou
sand seven hundred years ago, which De Saulcy claims to have discovered
at the southern extremity of the Dead Sea.
De Saulcy invokes the authority of Strabo, who says that the ruins of
Sodom were not less than sixty stadia in circumference. Strabo could
not have been more inopportunely disturbed from his geographical sleep.
If there be any such thing as credulity, we would ask where it can be
better looked for than in those, who believe that the ruins of such a dty,
built forty centuries ago, could, after thousands of years, exhibit a circuit
of nine miles ? But the learned are made of " more penetrable stuff,"
and they have come to the easy conclusion that, not the precinct of the
city, but the whole of the territory of Sodom was embraced in the circle
of sixty stadia. It might have been quite as easy to acknowledge that
Strabo, who is not proved to have enjoyed De Saulcy's privilege of travel
ing in the land of Judea, confounded two Lakes, distant from each other
some hundred and eighty miles — the Asphaltic Lake and Lake Sirbon,
from which, under the form of a " Serbonian bog." the great Webster
once drew an illustration, which set all the geographers of the land at
work to find its whereabout. Stress is equally laid on the testimony of
Tacitus, who mentions great cities, reduced to ashes by fire, vestiges of
which are stfll to be seen. This might have some weight, but that, bear
ing in mind that he gravely tells us that the Jews came from Mount Ida,
in Crete, we cannot think that his authority is so very binding in ques
tions of Jewish origins.* Before we reach the authority of Josephus, it
may be well to remark that, with the exception of Strabo arid of Taci
tus, there is not a single profane author, among those, who have spoken
of Lake Asphaltitis, who gives a single testimony against the submersion
of the PentapoHs. Pausanias, Justin, Pliny, the inexhaustible gatherer
of facts, maintain a most eloquent silence on this point.
But Josephus is the tower of strength, as the most respectable
authority in this debate. Now there is something strange in the discrep
ancies of Josephus, who, in his History of the Jews, tells us that Sodom-
itis, the country of Sodom, is in the neighborhood ofthe Asphaltic Lake,
and that (as translations have perverted the word) " vestiges of five dtie's
are still seen there ;" whilst, in the First Book of his Antiquities, he says :
* "Argumentum e nomine petitnr, inclytum in Crete Idam montem accolas
Idseos, ancto in barbanun cognomento Judasos vooitari."

12 THE DEAD SEA AND THB EUINS OP
" This fertile, fegion has disappeared. There were springs in those places,
but now that the city of Sodom has disappeared, the valley is found
occupied by Lake Asphaltitis." Which are we to believe, the historian
or the antiquary ? We, for our part, hold that the latter is entitled to
more credence, and this especially as, by the perversion of the word
skias,* the shadows, into the word vestiges, some doubt may be enter
tained whether he really meant that the ruins of these cities were still to
be seen. If it be true that Josephus is not always a safe guide on many
a point of history — one with whom the less headlong critic deals with
extreme caution ; if he have warped his own authority in the estimation
of some, who are competent judges in matters of sacred archaeology,
because he invests the plainest narratives, drawn from the Scriptures,
in the gaudier trappings of classical forms, it is not the less true that his
" Antiquities" bespeak a greater depth of inquiry and a more mature
growth of thought. Besides this, the second opinion of Josephus is borne
out by the assertion of Stephanas Byzantinus, a reputable cosmographer
of the fifth century, who, speaking of Sodom, says : " She was the
metropolis of ten cities — ^the Decapolis — that were sepulchred — insepultm
— in the Asphaltic Lake ! "
It is no easy matter, therefore, either from sacred or profane writers,
to deduce proofs sufficient to sustain the pretensions which De Saulcy has
advanced. He found the ruins of Sodom at the northern point of the
DjebeJrUsdom, or Mountain of Salt. Of all the travelers who have
threaded the promontory of Usdom, he alone had the good luck to
discover them'. Seetzen, Irby, Mangles, Robinson, Smith, and Lynch,
who, in the report of his expedition, gives us a view of the Mountain of
Salt, seem not to have had the slightest revelation of the immense extent
of ruins, which so vividly struck the attention and firmly settled the con
victions of the distinguished Member of the Institute. All that Dr.
Robinson observed, as he traveled over the spot, is what he calls a heap
of stones. This cairn, with its rough stones of blackened appearance,
no doubt set De Saulcy on the track of a hypothesis, against which
sounder considerations press with an irresistible weight.
It is no argument, but merely a speciousness of argument, to tell the
sceptic that " an hour upon the spot" is of more authority than all specu
lative and descriptive books. Just such a book is De Saulcy's ; and his
"hour upon the spot" has in no way modified its character. In such a
question as that of the Dead Sea, there is infinitely more of traditional
errors than of written fact. Besides, there is not a traveler that has not
painfully experienced the almost insuperable difficulty of securing infor
mation of even a middling character of accuracy in relation to things
which come under our very eyes, in those unfortunate regions, the soil of
which is divided between the fanatical populations of the towns and the
thievish races of the desert. When we find, in our more intelligent
people, strange ignorance as to facts and events, of not more than three-
quarters of a century's date, how can we believe that barbarous tribes of
the wilderness should have correctly hoarded and reflgionsly handed
down the traditions of events cotemporary with the building of the
Pyramids ? But the most fruitful cause of the distortion of truth and of
the conversion of phantoms into realities, is the venal and obsequious
— — — ^  FtClvia Ss ^ 'Zohojx.ilii avly, (7J %ifivy) 7tcf.%ai, jitsx luSai'iU.ui' y^.
« • • • iSli 6e xai vvvnfcvlc rfo^Euf iShv axlas. — Bell. Jud : IV. S. 4

SODOM AND GOMORBAH. 13
subserviency of all Arab guides. Most travelers to the East have
noticed their readiness to answer questions in the sense of those who
propound them, with the well-grounded hope that they will eke out the
stipulated salary for their service. Look, for instance, and in relation
to Sodom, at this specimen of a dialogue between De Saulcy and Sheikh
Abou-Daouk, who is, he says, " very explicit on the point." "When I
ask him," says De Saulcy, " where was the town of Sodom ?" He
answers me, " Here." " And did this ruin belong to the condemned
city ?" Sahib, assuredly." " Are there other vestiges of Sodom ?"
" Naam Fih Kharahat Ktir — yes ; there are a great many." " Where
are they ?" " Hon ova hon — there and there !" And this we are told,
not only with a tone of seriousness, but with an expression also of regret
that: " Most unfortunately it is now too late to retrace our steps, and
take a cursory glimpse of the ruins, even for a moment." Can it
be possible that the tourist, in being put through this hurried course of
topographical archaeology, by the learned Sheikh, could have forgotten
his own warning to others, in these ominous words : " A good lie is
readily forged in Arabia ; and, in this traffic, Europeans, with all their
aptitude, are poor practitioners in comparison." We have a faint
inkling that the guide was a shrewd knave, practising, profitably to
himself, on De Saulcy's ambition of startling discoveries. There is a
species of negative wisdom in the confession of ignorance ; and had
Abou-Daouk fallen back upon its prudent reserve, we have an idea that
truth would not have been, in the least, wounded ; whilst an illustrious
savant, though shorn of some of his splendors, would not be exposed to
the suspicion of having been " done" by a Bedouin knave.
This probable deception is brought out most strikingly by Van de
Welde, a traveler who explored the southern portion of the Dead Sea a
year after De Saulcy's tour. Prom his convictions we derive ours that
the ruins of Sodom have no existence in reality, and that heaps of stones,
brought together by some unaccountable action of nature, have been mis
taken for ruins of ancient structures. He tells us that, with a copy of De
Saulcy's manuscript map, he went to the very places which had been
visited by his predecessor. That the self-same Abou-Daouk, who had
accompanied De Saulcy, he had. as his guide; and yet he " most solemnly
declares that there are no ruins visible upon the plain, and at the north
foot of the Djebel-Usdom."
But the member of the Institute has discovered not only Sodom, on the
south-western terminus of the Dead Sea, but Gomorrah also, ou its north
western extremity, the latter distant from the former, as De Saulcy says,
" twenty-five leagues, or seventy-five English miles." Before we look
more closely into this second discovery, which, by the use of a Latinism,
may well be called an invention, it may be well again to remark that many,
since his explorations, have embraced his theory, that a lake, or sea, has
always existed where we now find the Dead Sea; and that, as a natural
consequence, the site of the destroyed cities is to be looked for, not under
the waters of the Asphaltic Lake, but at points on its margin, where they
have been located by De Saulcy, with the help of his Arab topographers.
These may have been discovered at the northern and southern ends of the
sea ; but the fact implies a question of relative geography, which the word
of God does not seem to sustain. The texts, which speak of the raid of
the four kings, and of the overthrow of the cities, must be collated in or
der to a proper understanding of this subject. The former tell us that

14 THE D15AD SEA AND THB EUINS OP
Chodorlaomer and his . allies, after smiting the Raphaim, the Zuzim and
the Emim, returned to the fountain of Judgment at Kadesh and visited
with war the Amorites that dwelt at Hazazon-Thamar; of which, St.
Jerome, commenting upon the word, says: "this is the fortified town now
called Engaddi,* rich in balsam and palms. Moreover Hazazon-Tamar,
in our language, signifies the city of Palms; for thamar is called a palm."
But a higher authority, Moses himself, viewed even from the stand-point
of supercilious human science, is held by many not very apt to believe in
his Divine Legation, to have been not altogether unacquainted with the
topography and the characteristics of the land, which he was commissioned
to enfeoff in the hands of the chosen people of God. Now, if the relative
topograjjhy, which, in his narrative, he lays down for Hazazon-Thamar,
be correctly delineated; if Hazazon-Thamar, both by the authority of
Deuteronomy and the comments of St. Jerome, one well versed in the
original language of the Scriptures, and equally familiar with the spoken
language of the people around him, was the fortified city of Eugaddi of
his own times; if this city of Engaddi was situated on the western shore
of the Dead Sea, midway between the northern and southern extremity ;
if, according to De Saulcy's inventions, Gomorrah, from the ruins which
he has found, was really at the northwestern, and Sodom at the south
western extremity of tbe Lake; then we have a phase, in his discoveries
which scarcely harmonizes with the revelations of Holy Writ. Moses, the
penman of its record, must have had a knowledge of places, as accurate
at least as that obtained by De Saulcy's twenty days' journeying about
the margins of the Dead Sea. Having that knowledge — a knowledge
both human and inspired — if the Dead Sea existed at the time of the in
cursion of the Kings — existed to afford De Saulcy an opportunity of
settling Gomorrah on the northwestern shore of that Sea, and not in
the valley of Siddim; then must Moses have committed some error in tho
eighth verse of the fourteenth chapter of Genesis, which says: "And
there" — (at Hazazon-Thamar, or Engaddi, midway on the western shore
of the Dead Sea) — " went out the King of Sodom and the King of Go
morrah, and the King of Admah and the Kingof Tseboim and the King
of Bala, tbe same is Zoar, and they joined battle in the vale of Siddim."
Let us, however slightly anahze this text. There, at Hazazon-Thamar,
or Engaddi, if not at the spot itself, still as a gathering point, the Five
Kings went out. At that point they joined battle in the vale of Siddim;
yet according to De Saulcy's own account, Hazazon-Thamar, or Engaddi,
is oMthe shore, not more than two hundred yards from the waters of the
pestilent sea. Where did the contending forces stand ? On the shore of
the sea ? The Book says, in the vale of Siddim. Where now is the vale
of Siddim, in which the battle was joined ? De Saulcy "makes no sign."
He knows no vale of Siddim. The voice of Moses, strong with the con
sentient voices of more than three thousand years, vainly exclaims that
what was once " the vale of Siddim is now the Dead Sea !" De Saulcy
answers': " I want no vale of Siddim converted into a Dead Sea. I want
an original pre-existing Dead Sea, with that existence not written down
* The modern Arabic form is Ain-Djedi ; which means literally Eye-of-the-
Goat. But the metaijhorioal meaning of am, an eye, being a spring — a meaning
which the Spaniards, no doubt borrowing it from their Arab invaders, have given
to the word ojo, which signifies both eye and spring ; the signification of A'in-
Djedi is Goat-Spring.

SODOM AND GOMORRAH

15

in any book, profane or sacred. I want a Dead Sea, with shores hem
ming it far in the depths of time. I want the shores especially in order
that I may locate upon them the ruins of the cities which I have dis
covered. But again : the King of Sodom and the King of Gomorrah went out
to that battle — went out together — and yet the King of Sodom was at the
southern, and the King of Gomorrah at the northern extremity of the
Lake! How did they contrive to go out together ? How did they form
their junction to engage in the fight?
They went out together, if De Saulcy's statement be correct, though
they were " twenty-five leagues, or seventy-five English miles" apart, at
opposite extremes, with the forces of Chodorlaomer, at Engaddi, midway
between them! Went out, when to form the junction, which Moses has
recorded, one, or the other of them had to pass the array of the allied
enemies, and, having passed it, to meet not in the vale of Siddim; but on
the narrow, desolate beach, which, according to De Saulcy, is, at that
point, not more than two hundred yards, in its widest reach, between the
base of the mountains and the borders of the Sea ! Surely this can
scarcely be admitted; and De Saulcy's discoveries, we sorely fear, far
from throwing any light on the mooted questions of the Pentapolis, are
well calculated to contribute to the learned Kitto's " difficulties of the
Dead Sea."
But these difficulties, if we admit De Saulcy's assumptions, are still
further increased by another text of the written Word. We have seen
that he places Sodom and Gomorrah at opposite extremes of that which
we now call the Dead Sea. Now let the mind turn to the memorable
interview between the Patriarch and our Lord. We learn from it, that
his attending angels, " the men rose up and looked toward Sodom and
Abraham went with them to bring them on the way." It was then that
the Lord, accommodating his speech to the cotumon form of expression
among the creatures of his hand, said : " Because the cry of Sodom and
Gomorrah is waxed great and because their sin is very grievous, I will go
down and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of
it." Observe that the Lord, in view of the clamor against Sodom and
Gomorrah, would not conceal his intents from Abraham ; but he resolved
to go down to them — down to them, Sodom o.'Ki Gomorrah — to ascertain
the substantial reason of the cry. This he did, vicariously, in the per
sons of the attending angels, whom Abraham put on their way; with
what results, the record still lives, and it shall ever live, to tell. Now
the expressions, from the lips of the Lord himself, are full of irreversible
power. The very spot, from which he is, by Moses represented as speak
ing, is of material, essential, importance. He stood with Abraham in
the plain of Mamre, some four miles south of Hebron, which lay almost
midway, to the west, of the Dead Sea; and in this position, therefore,
some sixteen miles from the devoted cities. But the Lord positively
says that he will go down — and he did so through his messengers —
that is southward from the position, in which he was speaking, to
see whether they — Sodom and Gomorrah — were as guilty as the cry
made them. But if Gomorrah be at the North, and, as De Saulcy says,
at a distance of " seventy-five English miles" from Sodom ; and Sodom
be at the Southern extremity of the Dead Sea, how are the words of the
Lord to be understood ? To him, in his Omnipotence, they could present
vio physical impossibility. He might, and could, have been in two oppo-

16 THE DEAD BEA AND THB EDINS OF SODOM AJID GOMOEEAH.
site places, as he is every where, at once I But to us, if the discoveries
V are genuine, do they not present an absurdity, which impiety alone could
attribute to Him ? But there is no absurdity. He remains with Abra
ham and dispatches his messengers, who actually go down to Sodom, " tho
head and front of the offending ;" and, from Sodom, they learn the story
of her neighbor, Gomorrah ! Then went forth the avenging breath of
God — then was the fearful doom carried out. And lest, it would seem,
there might be some error, the inspired penman says of Abraham, after
the overthrow of the cities : " And Abraham got up early in the mor
ning to the place, where he stood before the Lord, and he looked toward
Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the plain.  does Moses
say along the shores of the sea-?  aud behold and lo ! the smoke of the
country went up as the smoke of a furnace." We readily conceive that
the curling smoke of four, nearly contiguous, cities blazing in a supernal
conflagration, was easily seen from a distance of sixteen mOes. Could
that of an isolated city, at the great distance of " seventy-five English
miles," have been descried like " the smoke of a furnace ?" All these
difficulties, all these improbabilities, grow out of a desire, laudable no
doubt, of adding to the discoveries of science, or out of a reliance, unac
countable in a vigorous thinker, on the erudition of Arab guides. Of
this reliance, the dialogue, in relation to Sodom, has already given us an
example. The same thing occurs in regard to Gomorrah. Retracing
his steps from the discovery of Sodom, he alights on another heap of ruins.
What is this? he asks the Arab. "Oumran," says the Arab, with his
guttural utterance. Oumran? repeats Mr. De Saulcy — Oumran,
Goumran, Goumoran, Gomoran, Gomora — that must be Gomorrah.
Yes, Oumran is Gomorrah; and there it lies, on the sea shore, " with its
fine avenue of stones." But did it occur to Mr. De Saulcy to inquire of
his Arab antiquarians where the Vale of Siddim is? What ! they could
point out Usdom — a mere, spot — which is Sodom! They could point
Oumran — another mere spot — which becomes Gomorrah; but nothing of
the magnificent and plenteous valley ? Of course not. Neither eye of
Israelite, or Ishmalite, has rested upon it since the day, when the decree
of Heaven hurled down the dwelling places of abomination and the slum
bering waters, tossing under its angry breath, engulphed the soil upon
which it stood. "The Almighty's arm is stiU outstretched above
Their guiltiness! A living Death are they —
An all-enduring miracle ; for God
Hath set, in record of his fearful wrath.
His seal indelable upon their grave.
And cursed the land, where once his foot had trod!"

A DESCRIPTION

or

OF

TH.E BEAB SEA

Than that portion of the earth's surface, " which is the Dead
Sea," there is no spot, of equal extent, calculated to exert a
deeper and a more thriUing interest in the mind of the geologist,
the philosopher, and the Christian.
Once a plain, of fertility and beauty unsurpassed, through
which the river Jordan, meandering from its rocky cradle beyond
the Sea of Gralilee, poured forth a tribute of fruits, flowers, and
wine. Now, a sheet of bitter waters, filling, it may be, the crater
of an obliterated volcano, that rained down fire and brimstone on
the cities, destroying their teeming multitudes, save Lot and hia
daughters, the only surviving witnesses of the terrific doom.
There they lie, engulphed and buried deep beneath the sulphur
ous rocks, sustaining the briny flood, which, in the confusion of
clifted and upheaved mountains, amidst " the fire from the Lord
out of heaven," rushed up from the cavernous abyss to cover the
plain. ^^
The penman dHre "Wisdom of Solomon, speaking of the cities
of that plain, says of their " wickedness, even to this day, the
land that smoketh is a testimony, and plants bearing fruits that
never come to ripeness ; and a standing pillar of salt is a stand
ing monument of an unbelieving soul."
The view is taken from the north-western extremity, and it ex
tends south as far as the eye can reach ; the length of the sea,
running north to south, as given by Lieutenant Lynch of the U.
S. Navy, being forty miles. The Jordan enters the sea, on the
left of the picture, at the base of the Moab mountains, which
form a mural termination to the eastern portions of the Sea.
To the right of the picture is seen the range of mountains of
Judea, the base of which emerges immediately from the Sea,

18 DESCRIPTION OP THE PAINTING.
They are deprived of light, from the position of the sun. This
angle of the sun the artist has selected with a twofold aim — not
only as affording the best view of the eastern chain of mountains
and of the sea, but as authorizing also a beautiful suggestion, of
light and life leaving the shores of death. Tlae morning and
evening, it is proper to remark, are the only time — unless there
is a strong wind stirring — when the Sea is comparatively free
from a smoky haze, which almost finds a parallel in tlie olden day
of wrath, when " the smoke of the country went up as the smoke
of a furnace." It will, however, be observed by the spectator,
that it is not wholly disengaged ; nor is it ever entirely so, as a
gaseous portion remains lingering on the surface, giving a myste
rious complexion to the scene.
The termination of tlie water-line being the horizon, it is nar
rowed down by a promontory, jutting out from the Moabite side,
on the left of the picture. Beyond that, the eye is carried to its
utmost limit of vision. To the right of the canvas, the first gap,
seen in tlie mountains of Judea, is the point where the Brook of
Kedron finds an outlet into the Sea. The other side of the far^-
thest chain, forming a point, is Saba, described by Josephus in his
history of the Jewish war. The shore is seen at the bottom of
the picture nearest to the eye, divested of light, save at intervals
fringing the margin of the Sea.
The first impression on the senses of the artist — if he be per
mitted to speak — was an overawing feehng, in view of the ele
ments conspiring, in their disorganized confusion, to stamp this
spot on the tablet of memorj^ as the abiding place of God's
power in wrath. After a sojourn on the shore, at no time un
attended by danger to health and life, various considerations
arose in his mind . As they were suggested by the picture of
nature's hand, so, in this description, they may claim the privi
lege of a place. Most of the written accounts of this spot, al
though essentially true in point of facts, are, like many occur
rences of the Scriptures themselves, so differently worded, as to
afford the caviler a pretext for assailing truth on grounds of argu
ment, sophistical as its texture may be. Even to this day, " the
waste land that smoketh," tlie story of which is at once written
on the page of revelation and handed down in the traditions of
the race, still stands, in its deadliness, to silence the scorner's
lips. Surely would language utterly fail to convey a sense of this
scene of irremediable desolation witnessed by day. How much
less adequate to give expression to the double sepulchral gloom,
¦which overhangs the spot, when mantled in the congruent hor
rors of night, accompanied, as it is, by an instant feeling of death
stealing over the senses even to an actual, dissolving touch !
The race of the mighty, who bent the bow and, perchance, smote
a descendant of the Semramis, have gone down to immemorial
sleep ; — the busy din of life and industry — ^the guilty converse
and the wanton song are hushed—are hushed into ghastly silence

DESCRIPTION OP THE PAINTING.

19

broken only by the voice of the jackall, yelping along the dreary
waste, or keeping watch over the graves of the dead.
From the geological features of the spot and its vicinity, all
indications tend to show that the plain sank from its original ele
vation to its present level ; whilst vain would be the attempt of
man, either by science or by art, to redeem that tm which God
has so emphatically laid the perpetual warnings of a chastening
hand .
The approach, for miles before the scene is reached, is marked
by a gradual but regular declivity — a conclusion sustained by the
configuration of both the soil and the rocks. The admixture of
the soil with saltpetre, sulphur, bitumen, and salt, together with
the combination of the furnace heat, emitting the poisonous
gases, which have fore-doomed so maii)^, who ventured a stay
onl}', to an inevitable grave, must ever defy every effort to re
store this baleful chaos to the pristine loveliness which lured
the Patriarch, by the luxuriance of its green pastures, on which
tens of thousands of his cattle browsed.
The very steps of the explorer are arrested by the nature of
the soil. Every breath raises his pulse, and admonishes hini
that he is treading on a ground inscribed with a curse. He
leaves it with feverish haste, touched and bewildered by the
tokeniof sublime horror around him.
Besides the Arnon, the Brook of Kedron, and other feeders,
the Jordan, beyond serious doubt, in its meandering course,
througli the plain„discliarged itself into the Red Sea. But now,
in the disorganized state^of the locality, no outlet is found to the
Dead Sea ; and still it reveals no influence from the immense
body of water engulphed within its bosom from that perpetual
tributary. Like a sheet of molten metal, it lies undisturbed and
unaffected in the unchangeableness of its mystic bed. The
evaporation, going on during certain hours of the day, is truly
dense, shrouding all but the nearest objects from view.
The Artist's visit to that spot, it will be borne in mind, was
solely to transfer to the canvas the scene which expanded before
him. The immense labor of delineating the geological features
of the mountains, even to the smallest details, within the scope
of vision, was, in itself, one of engrossing interest to him. Still
it was one, even had he been qualified to make any scientific
investigations, which circumstances would have forbidden him
to undertake ; for a sojourn of seventeen days on the immediate
shore of '¦ The Sea of Doom," without leaving it, afforded him
ample evidence of the danger of a more protracted stay than thaf
required faithfully to complete his artistic task. To the explor
ations of the Dead Sea by Lieutenant Lynch, sent on that
scientific mission by the United States, he would, therefore, refer
those who may see his work for relative details.
But in view of what has been said that, although a continuous
volume of water be daily absorbed in this abyss, and that it has
no visible outlet, still it never gives evidence of overflowing its

20 DBSCKIPTION OP THE PAINTING.
shores ; the inference cannot be repelled that evaporation must,
beyond doubt, be one of the agencies by which it is kept within
its prescribed bounds. Costigan, whose energies and life were
stricken down by the deadly influences of the spot, in accounting
for the smoky appearance of this evaporation, states that as the
asphaltum is disgorged by the waters of the Dead Sea, and
thrown along its shores, and as the sun acts upon it, it crumbles
away, and at times emits a smoke.
The shores are desolately bare of vegetation, except where
fresh water is partially found, gushing from beneath the moun
tain's base. That vegetation, if it may be so called, is unlike any
healthy growth, being of a fungus and, no doubt, poisonous na
ture, dissolving by pressure into a slimy juice.
By a singular fitness of things, the shores of that Sea, which
are an emblem, also supply an agency, of death. Owing to the
immense quantity of crystalized saltpetre and sulphur, Bedouins
resort to this spot to gather materials for the manufacture of the
powder, which they have, from time immemorial, used in their
tribal feuds. A closing contrast is found in the Jordan, vhich,
while in its spring-tide buoyancy it rushes on, floating lifei.on,
bosom from, the moment that it enters the region of dea^: i, r
but to blend its once healing tide with the waters of bit rne(
again to be thrown up, and to lie on the withered shorej-V ^hic'
mummy-like, defies the changes of time, as it baffles the specula^
tions of men!

ich, '
ic3|

DE,5CRI1'TI0N C
ference canno*
be one of +'
ounds

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