extreme length is thirteen miles, and its greatest width seven miles. Its surface level is 650 feet below that of the Mediterranean. Its surroundings have nothing of a Swiss or Alpine character. "There are here no pineclad hills rising from the very edge of the lake; no bold headlands break the outline of the shores; and no lofty precipices throw their shadow over its waters; but it has, nevertheless, a beauty of its own, which always makes it remarkable. The hills, except at Khan Minyeh, where there is a small cliff, are recessed from the shore of the lake, or rise gradually from it; they are of no great elevation, and their outline, especially on the eastern side, is not broken by any prominent peak. Everywhere from the southern shore the snow-capped peak of Hermon is visible, standing out so sharp and clear in the bright sky that it appears almost within reach.

"The shore line, for the most, part regular, is broken on the north into a series of little bays of exquisite beauty; nowhere more beautiful than at Gennesareth, where the beaches, pearly white with myriads of minute shells, are on one side washed by the limpid waters of the lake, and on the other shut in by a fringe of oleanders, which in the month of May add the charms of their red and bright blossoms to the beauty of the scene."

Encompassed, as this sheet of water is, with rocky and fissured mountains, its shores abound in springs, some of which are sweet, some are brackish, some are sulphurous, and some are quite warm. About a mile

south of modern Tiberias, there are no less than seven distinct springs, varying in temperature from 132° to 142° Fahr. A strong smell of sulphur rises from the water, and as it flows down to the lake it encrusts the stones and rocks with a green deposit.

From the southern end of the Sea of Galilee the Jordan emerges a pure and bright stream, to enter upon the third and last stage of its course. The valley, in prospect below, is broad and verdant, stretching away toward the south, covered in the immediate neighborhood of the lake with luxuriant grass. On the east side, palm trees here and there wave their graceful tops; the oleander everywhere fringes both the river and the streamlets that flow into it; and at different points, tamarisks of peculiar species, and many other trees unknown in the rest of Palestine, crowd the banks.

Lieutenant W. F. Lynch, of the United States Navy, who descended the Jordan in 1847, found its course, though generally of moderate rapidity, yet interrupted frequently by descents that amounted almost to cascades. His boats plunged down no less than twenty-seven threatening rapids, besides a number of lesser note. Its channel is also remarkably tortuous; although the direct distance between the Lake of Galilee and the Dead Sea does not exceed sixty miles, yet its waters, to accomplish this, travel full two hundred miles. While its immediate banks, in many places, are beautified by trees and rich vegetation, and enlivened by the songs of various birds, the more remote cliffs and hill-sides present, for the most part, a wild and cheerless aspect.

When down about a third of the distance between the two seas the American commander gives the following lively description of the scenery: "For hours in their swift descent the boats floated down in silence—the silence of the wilderness. Here and there were spots of solemn beauty. The numerous birds sang with a music strange and manifold; the willow branches were spread upon the stream like tresses, and weeping mosses and clambering weeds, with a multitude of white and silvery little flowers, looked out from among them; and the cliff swallow wheeled over the falls, or went at his own will, darting through the arched vistas, shadowed and shaped by the meeting of the foliage on the banks; and above all, yet attuned to all, was the music of the river, gushing with a sound like that of shawms and cymbals. There was little variety in the scenery of the river; to-day the stream sometimes washed the bases of the sandy hills, at other times meandered between low banks generally fringed with trees, and fragrant with blossoms. Some points presented views exceedingly picturesque the mad rushing of a mountain torrent, the song and sight of birds, the overhanging foliage and glimpse of the mountains far over the plain, and here and there a gurgling rivulet pouring its tribute of crystal water into the now muddy Jordan; the western shore was peculiar from the high calcareous limestone hills, which form a barrier to the stream when swollen by the efflux of the Sea of Galilee during the winter and early spring; while the left and eastern bank was low and fringed with tamarisk and willow, and occasionally a

thicket of lofty cane, and tangled masses of shrubs and creeping plants, gave it the appearance of a jungle.” *

Below Wady Ajlun, or about midway between the Lakes, the same explorer tells us that "the mountains toward the west rise abruptly in naked pyramidal crags; each scar and fissure appearing as palpably distinct as though within reach, and yet are hours away; the laminations of their strata resembling the leaves of some gigantic volume, wherein is written by the hand of God the history of the changes He has wrought."

As the river approaches the end of its career, the banks become low, and the country flat and level, overspread with willows and sedges and tall grass. Shoals and sandbanks now often obstruct the channel, and the current moves more and more slowly. At its mouth, and even some distance before, its waters are salt and acrid, and the dried mud and stones along its verge everywhere are incrusted with deposits of the same character. At the point of disemboguement it is 540 feet wide, and three feet deep, as measured by Lieutenant Lynch. Thus this remarkable and sacred stream, after travelling hundreds of miles, and winding through a thousand graceful mazes amid scenes of life and solitude, barrenness and beauty, at length reaches its dismal termination-The Dead Sea.

Sunk as the valley of the Jordan is in this its lowest division, not only below the general surface of the country, but a thousand feet below the level of the sea,

its climate is in summer exceedingly hot; and even in winter, snow and frost are here unknown.

THE DEAD SEA.

THE whole valley of the Jordan is a vast and deep trench, dug far down into the crust of the earth, and growing deeper and deeper as it advances toward the south, until in the basin of the Dead Sea it reaches its lowest depth. Here, therefore, are collected and held in a profound and mysterious reservoir the waters of that celebrated stream. This collection of water is a great salt lake, forty-two miles long, and from twelve to sixteen miles wide. Its form is somewhat irregular, being penetrated two-thirds across, at the southeast quarter, by a point of land, called the peninsula of Lisan. In the southern part the water generally is not more than ten or twelve feet deep, while a considerable extent is much less; at one point it is even fordable. At the north end it is much deeper; here the depth ranges from 700 feet to 1100 feet, and at one point reaches the profundity of 1308 feet. (See the sectional views on the next page.) But the most marvellous thing about this sea is the fact that its surface, according to the accurate measurement of Lieutenant Symonds, of the English service, is 1312 feet below the level of the Mediterranean. Hence the bed of this lake is the deepest depression known on the face of any continent of the globe, being 2620 feet below the sea level. The descent from the summit of the Mount of Olives to the Ford of Jordan, near its mouth, is not less than 4000 feet.