s often imperil any small boats which may be out on the sea
as was the case in Bible times when the Master was sleeping and his
disciples awakened him, saying: "Lord, save us; we perish."

From this body of water to the point where the Jordan empties into the
Dead Sea is only sixty-five miles by airline, but the way the river
winds like a gigantic serpent, one would travel twice that distance were
he to go in a boat. This Jordan valley is from four to fourteen miles
wide and the mountains on each side rise to the height of from fifteen
hundred to three thousand feet.

Within this Jordan valley is what might be called an inner valley which
is from a quarter of a mile to a mile wide, and from fifty to something
like seventy-five feet deep. This might be called the river bottom and
the river winds like a snake in this smaller valley. That boy was a
wise lad who wrote a description of the Jordan as follows: "The Jordan
is a river which runs straight down through the middle of Palestine, but
if you look at it very closely, _it wriggles about_." When the river
overflows it simply covers the bottom of this inner valley.

As noted above, the Sea of Galilee is six hundred and eighty feet below
the level of the ocean. During this sixty-five miles (airline) to the
Dead Sea, it falls more than six hundred feet more, so that the Dead Sea
itself is about thirteen hundred feet below the level of the
Mediterranean Sea which is only forty miles west. Should a canal be cut
across to the Mediterranean which would let the water through, not only
would the Dead Sea and the River Jordan disappear, but the Sea of
Galilee be included in a great inland sea east of Palestine.

While the Jordan as well as other smaller streams flow continually into
the Dead Sea, it is said that it never raises an inch. This, with the
fact that this body of water has no outlet whatever, makes a problem to
which geologists and scientific men have failed to give a satisfactory
solution. Of course, the water evaporates very rapidly, but in the
spring when the Jordan overflows and pours a much greater volume of
water into it, how does it come that it evaporates so much faster than
at any other time in the year?

When the writer visited the Dead Sea the water was as smooth as glass.
The water is so salty that a human body will not sink in it at all.
Should the body go under it will bob up again like a cork. I have never
learned to swim; in deep water simply cannot