tion ever sent on such an errand; fortunately, he picked up
a young instructor in mathematics, Mr. Anderson, and added to his
apparatus two strong iron boats.

Arriving, after a tedious voyage, on the coast of Asia Minor, he set to
work. He had no adequate preparation in general history, archaeology,
or the physical sciences; but he had his American patriotism, energy,
pluck, pride, and devotion to duty, and these qualities stood him in
good stead. With great labour he got the iron boats across the country.
Then the tug of war began. First of all investigators, he forced his way
through the whole length of the river Jordan and from end to end of the
Dead Sea. There were constant difficulties--geographical, climatic, and
personal; but Lynch cut through them all. He was brave or shrewd, as
there was need. Anderson proved an admirable helper, and together
they made surveys of distances, altitudes, depths, and sundry simple
investigations in a geological, mineralogical, and chemical way. Much
was poorly done, much was left undone, but the general result was most
honourable both to Lynch and Anderson; and Secretary Mason found that
his easy-going patronage of the enterprise was the best act of his
official life.

The results of this expedition on public opinion were most curious.
Lynch was no scholar in any sense; he had travelled little, and thought
less on the real questions underlying the whole investigation; as to
the difference in depth of the two parts of the lake, he jumped--with
a sailor's disregard of logic--to the conclusion that it somehow proved
the mythical account of the overwhelming of the cities, and he indulged
in reflections of a sort probably suggested by his recollections of
American Sunday-schools.

Especially noteworthy is his treatment of the legend of Lot's wife. He
found the pillar of salt. It happened to be at that period a circular
column of friable salt rock, about forty feet high; yet, while he
accepts every other old myth, he treats the belief that this was once
the wife of Lot as "a superstition." One little circumstance added
enormously to the influence of this book, for, as a frontispiece, he
inserted a picture of the salt column. It was delineated in rather a
poetic manner: light streamed upon it, heavy clouds hung above it,
and, as a background, were ranged buttresses of salt rock furrowed and
channelled out by the winter rains: this salt statue picture was spread
far and wide, and in th