ns lasted, and indeed for some
time afterward, this kind of dealing with the Holy Land was fashionable,
and we have a long series of men, especially of Frenchmen, who evidently
received their impulse from Chateaubriand.

About 1831 De Geramb, Abbot of La Trappe, evidently a very noble and
devout spirit, sees vapour above the Dead Sea, but stretches the truth a
little--speaking of it as "vapour or smoke." He could not find the salt
statue, and complains of the "diversity of stories regarding it." The
simple physical cause of this diversity--the washing out of different
statues in different years--never occurs to him; but he comforts himself
with the scriptural warrant for the metamorphosis.(441)

(441) For Mariti, see his Voyage, etc., vol. ii, pp. 352-356. For
Tobler's high opinion of him, see the Bibliographia, pp. 132, 133. For
Volney, see his Voyage en Syrie et Egypte, Paris, 1807, vol. i, pp.
308 et seq.; also, for a statement of contributions of the eighteenth
century to geology, Lartet in De Luynes's Mer Morte, vol. iii, p. 12.
For Cornelius Bruyn, see French edition of his works, 1714 (in which his
name is given as "Le Brun"), especially for representations of fossils,
pp. 309, 375. For Chateaubriand, see his Voyage, etc., vol. ii, part
iii. For De Geramb, see his Voyage, vol. ii, pp. 45-47.

But to the honour of scientific men and scientific truth it should
be said that even under Napoleon and the Bourbons there were men who
continued to explore, observe, and describe with the simple love of
truth as truth, and in spite of the probability that their researches
would be received during their lifetime with contempt and even
hostility, both in church and state.

The pioneer in this work of the nineteenth century was the German
naturalist Ulrich Seetzen. He began his main investigation in 1806, and
soon his learning, courage, and honesty threw a flood of new light into
the Dead Sea questions.

In this light, myth and legend faded more rapidly than ever. Typical
of his method is his examination of the Dead Sea fruit. He found, on
reaching Palestine, that Josephus's story regarding it, which had been
accepted for nearly two thousand years, was believed on all sides; more
than this, he found that the original myth had so grown that a multitude
of respectable people at Bethlehem and elsewhere assured him that not
only apples, but pears, pomegranates, figs, lemons, and many other
fruits which grow upon the