of 1625; also the
frontpiece of the Luther Bible published at Nuremberg in 1708; also
Scheuchzer's Kupfer-Bibel, Augsburg, 1731, Tab. lxxx. For the account of
the Dead Sea serpent "Tyrus," etc., see La Grande Voyage de Hierusalem,
Paris (1517?), p. xxi. For De Salignac's assertion regarding the salt
pillar and suggestion regarding the absorption of the Jordan before
reaching the Dead Sea, see his Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae, Magdeburg,
1593, SS 34 and 35. For Bunting, see his Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae,
Magdeburg, 1589, pp. 78, 79. For Andrichom's picture of the salt statue,
see map, p. 38, and text, p. 205, of his Theatrum Terrae Sanctae, 1613.
For Calvin and Servetus, see Willis, Servetus and Calvin, pp. 96, 307;
also the Servetus edition of Ptolemy.

Protestants and Catholics vied with each other in the making of new
myths. Thus, in his Most Devout Journey, published in 1608, Jean
Zvallart, Mayor of Ath in Hainault, confesses himself troubled by
conflicting stories about the salt statue, but declares himself sound in
the faith that "some vestige of it still remains," and makes up for
his bit of freethinking by adding a new mythical horror to the
region--"crocodiles," which, with the serpents and the "foul odour of
the sea," prevented his visit to the salt mountains.

In 1615 Father Jean Boucher publishes the first of many editions of his
Sacred Bouquet of the Holy Land. He depicts the horrors of the Dead Sea
in a number of striking antitheses, and among these is the statement
that it is made of mud rather than of water, that it soils whatever is
put into it, and so corrupts the land about it that not a blade of grass
grows in all that region.

In the same spirit, thirteen years later, the Protestant Christopher
Heidmann publishes his Palaestina, in which he speaks of a fluid
resembling blood oozing from the rocks about the Dead Sea, and cites
authorities to prove that the statue of Lot's wife still exists and
gives signs of life.

Yet, as we near the end of the sixteenth century, some evidences of a
healthful and fruitful scepticism begin to appear.

The old stream of travellers, commentators, and preachers, accepting
tradition and repeating what they have been told, flows on; but here and
there we are refreshed by the sight of a man who really begins to think
and look for himself.

First among these is the French naturalist Pierre Belon. As regards the
ordinary wonders, he had the simple faith of his