An old tradition tells us that the Jordan flows direct through the sea of Galilee without mingling with its waters. The orig,in of the story may be the fact that the river enters the lake at the nor thern extremity, and leaves it at a point exactly opposite at the southern, without apparent increase or diminution.
The third section of the river, lying between the sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, is the Jordan of Scripture ; the other two sections not being di rectly mentioned either in the O. T. or N. T. Until the last few years little was known of it. The notices of ancient geographers are not full. Travellers had crossed it at several points, but all the portions between these points were unknown. When the remarkable depression of the Dead Sea was ascertained by trigonometrical measurement, and when it was shown that the Jordan must have a fall of 140o feet in its short course of about ioo miles, the measurements were called in question by that distinguished geographer Dr. Robinson, in a paper read before the Royal Geographical Society in 1847 (7ourna/, vol. xviii., part 2). In that same year Lieut. Molyneux, R.N., conveyed a boat from the sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, mostly in the river, but in places on the backs of camels, where rocks and rapids prevented naviga tion. Owing to the hostility of the Arabs the ex pedition was not successful ; and the Jordan was not yet explored. Lieut. Lynch of the United States Navy headed a much more successful expe dition in 1848, and was the first fully to describe the course, and fully to solve the mysteries of the Jordan. His Official Report is the standanl work on the river. Molyneux's paper in the journal of the R. Geog. Society also contains some useful matter (vol. xviii., part 2).
The valley through which this section of the Jordan flows is a long, low plain, running from north to south, and shut in by steep and rugged parallel ridges ; the eastern ridge rising fully 5000 feet above the river's bed ; and the western about 3000. This plain is the great plain' of the later Jews ; the great desert' (TAT* imicw) of Jose ohus : the 'Aldan' or channel of the Greek geo graphers ; and the Char' or sunken plain' of the modern Arabs (Stanley, p. 277 ; Joseph. Bell. 7:44 iii. 9. 7 ; iv. 8. 2; Reland, Pal., p. 3o5, 361, 377, seq.) It is about six miles wide at its northern end, but it gradually expands until it attains a width of upwards of twelve at Jericho. Its sides are not straight lines, nor is its surface perfectly level. The mountains on each side here and there send out rocky spurs, and long low roots far into it. Winter torrents, descending from wild ravines, cut deeply through its soft strata. As a whole it is now a desert. In its northern division, above the fords of Succoth, small portions are cultivated around fountains, and along the banks of streamlets, vdtere irrigation is easy ; but all the rest is a wilderness—in spring covered with rank grass and thistles, but in summer parched and bare.
The southern section—known as the 'plain of Jericho '—is different in aspect. Its surface is covered with a white nitrous crust, like hoar frost, through which not a blade of grass or green herb springs. Nothing could be imagined more dreary or desolate than this part of the plain.
Down the midst of the plain winds a ravine, varying from 200 yards to half a mile in breadth, and from 4o to 15o feet in depth. Through dais the Jordan flows in a tortuous course, now sweep ing the western, and now the eastern bank ; now making a wide, graceful curve, and now doubling back ; but everywhere fringed by a narrow, dense border of trees and shrubs. The river has thus two distinct lines of banks. The first or lower banks confine the stream, and are from five to ten feet high, the height of course decreasing in spring when the river is high ; thc second or upper are at some distance from the channel, and in places rise to a height of r5o feet. The scenery of the river is peculiar and striking. Lynch thus describes the upper section : The high alluvial terraces on each side were everywhere shaped hy the action of the winter rains into numbers of conical hills, some of them pyramidal and cuneiform, presenting the ap pearance of a giant encampment. This singular conformation extended southward as far as the eye could reach. At intervals I caught a glimpse of the river in its graceful meanderings, sometimes glittering like a spear-head through an opening in the foliage, and again clasping some little island in its shining arms, or, far away, snapping with the fierceness and white foam of a torrent by some pro jecting point. . . . The banks were fringed ith the laurustinus, the oleander, the willow, and the tamarisk, and farther inland, on the slope of the second terrace, grew a small species of oak, and the cedar.' The Jordan issues from the Sea of Galilee close to the hills on the western side of the plain, and sweeps round a little peninsula, on which lie the ruins of Tarichtea. (Handbook, p. 3zr ; Robinson, i. 538). The stream is about too feet wide, and the current strong (Lynch). A short distance down are the remains of a Roman bridge, whose fallen arches greatly obstruct the river, and make it dash through in sheets of foam. Below this are several weirs, constructed of rough stones, and in tended to raise the water, and turn it into canals, so as to irrigate the neighbouring plain (11Iolyneux). Five miles from the lake the Jordan receives its largest tributary, the Sheriat el-Alandhlir (the Hkromax of the Greeks), which drains a large section of Bashan and Gilead. This stream is 130 feet wide at its mouth. Two miles farther is Jisr el-Mejamia, the only bridge now standing on the lower Jordan. It is a quaint structure ; one large pointed arch spanning the stream, and double tiers of smaller arches supporting the roadway on each side. The river is here deep and impetuous, breaking over high ledges of rocks.