shores of the Dead Sea, though beautiful to
look upon, were filled with ashes. These good people declared to Seetzen
that they had seen these fruits, and that, not long before, a basketful
of them which had been sent to a merchant of Jaffa had turned to ashes.

Seetzen was evidently perplexed by this mass of testimony and naturally
anxious to examine these fruits. On arriving at the sea he began to look
for them, and the guide soon showed him the "apples." These he found to
be simply an asclepia, which had been described by Linnaeus, and which
is found in the East Indies, Arabia, Egypt, Jamaica, and elsewhere--the
"ashes" being simply seeds. He looked next for the other fruits, and
the guide soon found for him the "lemons": these he discovered to be a
species of solanum found in other parts of Palestine and elsewhere, and
the seeds in these were the famous "cinders." He looked next for the
pears, figs, and other accursed fruits; but, instead of finding them
filled with ashes and cinders, he found them like the same fruits in
other lands, and he tells us that he ate the figs with much pleasure.

So perished a myth which had been kept alive two thousand years,--partly
by modes of thought natural to theologians, partly by the self-interest
of guides, and partly by the love of marvel-mongering among travellers.

The other myths fared no better. As to the appearance of the sea, he
found its waters not "black and sticky," but blue and transparent; he
found no smoke rising from the abyss, but tells us that sunlight and
cloud and shore were pleasantly reflected from the surface. As to Lot's
wife, he found no salt pillar which had been a careless woman, but the
Arabs showed him many boulders which had once been wicked men.

His work was worthily continued by a long succession of true
investigators,--among them such travellers or geographers as Burckhardt,
Irby, Mangles, Fallmerayer, and Carl von Raumer: by men like these the
atmosphere of myth and legend was steadily cleared away; as a rule, they
simply forgot Lot's wife altogether.

In this noble succession should be mentioned an American theologian, Dr.
Edward Robinson, professor at New York. Beginning about 1826, he devoted
himself for thirty years to the thorough study of the geography of
Palestine, and he found a worthy coadjutor in another American divine,
Dr. Eli Smith. Neither of these men departed openly from the old
traditions: that would have cost a heart-breaking