ast up masses of bitumen; concretions of sulphur and large formations
of salt constantly appear.

The water which comes from the springs or oozes through the salt layers
upon its shores constantly brings in various salts in solution, and,
being rapidly evaporated under the hot sun and dry wind, there has been
left, in the bed of the lake, a strong brine heavily charged with the
usual chlorides and bromides--a sort of bitter "mother liquor" This
fluid has become so dense as to have a remarkable power of supporting
the human body; it is of an acrid and nauseating bitterness; and by
ordinary eyes no evidence of life is seen in it.

Thus it was that in the lake itself, and in its surrounding shores,
there was enough to make the generation of explanatory myths on a large
scale inevitable.

The main northern part of the lake is very deep, the plummet having
shown an abyss of thirteen hundred feet; but the southern end is shallow
and in places marshy.

The system of which it forms a part shows a likeness to that in South
America of which the mountain lake Titicaca is the main feature; as a
receptacle for surplus waters, only rendering them by evaporation, it
resembles the Caspian and many other seas; as a sort of evaporating dish
for the leachings of salt rock, and consequently holding a body of water
unfit to support the higher forms of animal life, it resembles,
among others, the Median lake of Urumiah; as a deposit of bitumen, it
resembles the pitch lakes of Trinidad.(427)

(427) For modern views of the Dead Sea, see the Rev. Edward Robinson, D.
D., Biblical Researches, various editions; Lynch's Exploring Expedition;
De Saulcy, Voyage autour de la Mer Morte; Stanley's Palestine and Syria;
Schaff's Through Bible Lands; and other travellers hereafter quoted. For
good photogravures, showing the character of the whole region, see the
atlas forming part of De Luynes's monumental Voyage d'Exploration. For
geographical summaries, see Reclus, La Terre, Paris, 1870, pp. 832-834;
Ritter, Erdkunde, volumes devoted to Palestine and especially as
supplemented in Gage's translation with additions; Reclus, Nouvelle
Geographie Universelle, vol. ix, p. 736, where a small map is given
presenting the difference in depth between the two ends of the lake,
of which so much was made theologically before Lartet. For still better
maps, see De Saulcy, and especially De Luynes, Voyage d'Exploration
(atlas). For very interesting panoramic