T8m Niha, the culminating point of south ern Lebanon, fifteen miles north of the Litany 6500 Kefr Winch, a pass over the ridge four miles farther south Kula'at esh-Shukif (Belfort), overhanging T Kedesh-Naphtali, twelve miles south of the Litany (Kedesh is in an upland plain surrounded by peaks and ridges several hundred feet higher than the town) . 3354 From these measurements it will appear how singularly uniform the elevation of the range is from Esdraelon to Hebron. This gives it the ap pearance of a vast wall as seen from the sea. Its aspect from the Jordan valley is different ; it seems to have a much greater elevation on the south, owing to the depression of the Dead Sea and the adjoining plain.
3. The 7ordan physical geography of this natural division of Palestine has already been so fully described that it will only be necessary in this place to supplement a few points serving to connect it with the mountain-chain on the west, and the plateau on the east, and thus to apportion to it its place in the general survey of the country.
The Jordan valley is the most remarkable feature in the physical geography of Palestine. Its great depression makes it so. It is wholly, or almost wholly, beneath the level of the ocean. It runs in a straight line through the country from north to south. From Dan, on the northern border, to the southern angle of the Dead Sea, its length is 15o English miles. Its breadth at the northern end is about six ; at the Sea of Galilee it is nine ; and at Jericho, where it is widest, it is about thir teen. There are places between these points where it is much narrower. Immediately south of lake Merom is a high terrace—an offshoot from the culminating peaks at Safed—which has an eleva tion of about goo feet, and breaks down to the Jordan on the east in steep banks, and to the shores of the Sea of Galilee on the south in long terraced declivities. From the western side of the terrace the mountains rise steeply ; so that the terrace itself may be considered as a higher section of the valley. Along the south-west shore of the Sea of Galilee a dark ridge shoots out eastward, and descends to the banks of the Jordan in frown ing cliffs, narrowing the valley to a width of about four miles. The next point where the western ridge projects is at Kurn Surtabeh, east of Shiloh. This peak resembles the horn of a rhinoceros, and hence its name ; from it a rocky ridge of white limestone runs across the valley almost to the banks of the river in its centre. The peak of Sur
tabeh is remarkable as one of the signal stations o. the ancient Israelites, on which beacons were lighted to announce the appearance of the new moon (Talmud, Roth Ha-Shona, ii. ; Reland, p. 346 ; Robinson, E. R., iii. 293).
The western bank of the valley, though every where clearly and sharply defined, is irregular, like a deeply indented coast-line, occasioned by the broken character of the ridge behind, and the glens and broad plains which run into it. The eastern bank is different. It is straight as a wall, except for a short distance in the centre, where the rugged hills and deep glens of Gilead break its uniformity. On the whole it is more abrupt than the western ; and its top appears almost horizontal. This regu larity arises from the fact that it is not, strictly speaking, a mountain-chain, but rather the bank or supporting wall of a natural terrace.
The northern section of the Jordan valley is flat. Around the site of Dan extends a plain of great fertility, now in part cultivated by Damascus mer chants, as it was in primaeval days by the Sidonians (Judg. xviii. 7). The uncultivated parts are covered with rank grass, and thickets of dwarf oak, sycamore, arbutus, and oleander. South of this is a large tract of marshy ground, extending to the shores of Merom—the home of wild swine, buffa.
loes, and innumerable water-fowl. The marsh and lake are fed not only by the Jordan, but by great numbers of fountains along the side of the plain, and streams from the surrounding mountains. The lake Merom occupies the lower part of this basin [MERom], and has a broad margin of fertile land along each side. Below the lake the regula rity of the valley is interrupted by the projecting terrace already mentioned, and the river is pushed over close to the eastern bank, along which it runs in a deep wild glen. At the mouth of the Jordan, on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, is a low rich plain, several miles in extent, famous for its early and luxuriant crops of melons and cucum bers. It is cultivated by some families of nomad Arabs. The lake here fills the valley from side to side, with the exception of the little fertile plain of Gennesaret on the western shore [GENNESARET]. The eastern shore keeps close to the base of the hills, which rise over it in steep bare acclivities