The Probert Encyclopaedia of Places of the World

DEAD SEA

The Dead Sea (called in Latin Lacus Asphaltites and in Arabic Bahr Lot) is a large lake partly in Israel and partly in Jordan. In the Scriptures the Dead Sea is refered to as 'Salt Sea,' 'Sea of the Plains,' and 'East Sea'. The north extremity is 25 miles east of Jerusalem, and 10 miles south - east of Jericho; it has a length, north to south, of about 46 miles; and its breadth at the widest part is between 9 and 10 miles with an average of about 8.5 miles. The basin or hollow in which the Dead Sea reposes forms the south termination of the great depression through which the Jordan flows, that river entering it at its north extremity. It receives several other tributaries, but has no outlet. The surface is 1312 feet below the level of the Mediterranean, and 984 feet below Lake Tiberias, from which the Jordan issues.

The Dead Sea lies deeply imbedded between lofty cliffs of naked limestone, its shores presenting a scene of indescribable desolation and solitude, encompassed by desert sands, and bleak, stony, salt hills. Sulphur and rock-salt, lava and pumice, abound along its shores. The water is nauseous to the taste and smell, and so buoyant that the human body will not sink in it. At about a third of its length from the north end it attains a maximum depth of 1308 feet. The southern portion is a mere lagoon, 12 feet deep in the middle and 3 feet deep at the edges. It was long assumed that this lake did not exist before the destruction of Sodom and the other 'cities of the plain,' and'that, previously to that time, the present bed of the lake was a fertile plain, in which these cities stood, and was then merely traversed by the Jordan, which, in accordance with this theory, was supposed to hold on its course to the Red Sea. This theory has been shown to be untenable. No animals exist in its waters.
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