uced the
catastrophe.(443)

(443) For Kranzel, see his Reise nach Jerusalem, etc. For Schegg, see
his Gedenkbuch einer Pilgerreise, etc., 1867, chap. xxiv. For Palmer,
see his Desert of the Exodus, vol. ii, pp. 478, 479. For the various
compromises, see works already cited, passim. For Von Bohlen, see
his Genesis, Konigsberg, 1835, pp. 200-213. For Calmet, see his
Dictionarium, etc, Venet., 1766. For very recent compromises, see J. W.
Dawson and Dr. Cunningham Geikie in works cited.

The revolt against such efforts to RECONCILE scientific fact with myth
and legend had become very evident about the middle of the nineteenth
century. In 1851 and 1852 Van de Velde made his journey. He was a most
devout man, but he confessed that the volcanic action at the Dead Sea
must have been far earlier than the catastrophe mentioned in our sacred
books, and that "the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah had nothing to
do with this." A few years later an eminent dignitary of the English
Church, Canon Tristram, doctor of divinity and fellow of the Royal
Society, who had explored the Holy Land thoroughly, after some
generalities about miracles, gave up the whole attempt to make science
agree with the myths, and used these words: "It has been frequently
assumed that the district of Usdum and its sister cities was the result
of some tremendous geological catastrophe.... Now, careful examination by
competent geologists, such as Monsieur Lartet and others, has shown that
the whole district has assumed its present shape slowly and gradually
through a succession of ages, and that its peculiar phenomena are
similar to those of other lakes." So sank from view the whole mass
of Dead Sea myths and legends, and science gained a victory both for
geology and comparative mythology.

As a protest against this sort of rationalism appeared in 1876 an
edition of Monseigneur Mislin's work on The Holy Places. In order to
give weight to the book, it was prefaced by letters from Pope Pius IX
and sundry high ecclesiastics--and from Alexandre Dumas! His hatred
of Protestant missionaries in the East is phenomenal: he calls them
"bagmen," ascribes all mischief and infamy to them, and his hatred is
only exceeded by his credulity. He cites all the arguments in favour of
the salt statue at Usdum as the identical one into which Lot's wife was
changed, adds some of his own, and presents her as "a type of doubt and
heresy." With the proverbial facility of dogmati