On the north, at the embouchure of the Jordan, a low promontory is being gradually formed by the muddy deposits brought down by the river. It is mostly bare, destitute of all vegetation, and like the adjoining plain covered with a nitrous crust. At present it projects into the lake more than a mile. When the water is very high, a portion is overflown. To the westward lies a deep bay, and beyond it a long low isthmus, covered with cairns of loose rounded stones. De Saulcy has given to this isthmus the name Rea'jz2m Louth, Lot's ruin ;' but the writer never heard the name on the spot. The ruins are shapeless and desolate. They are of the highest antiquity, and may perhaps be of the era of the cities of the plain.' The shore-line 1101V trends, with an easy curve, to the south-west, and then to the south, until it reaches the bold headland of Ras el-Feshkhah. So far it is flat and sandy, and the adjoining plain dreary and naked, save where, at long intervals, a little brackish spring rises, or a tiny strearnlet flows, and there cane-brakes and shrubberies of tamarisk are seen. Ridges of drift mark the water line, and are composed of broken canes and willow branches, with trunks of palms, poplars, and other trees, half imbedded in slimy mud, and all covered with incrustations of salt.
It is deserving of special note, that the mountain. sides and low plains on both the eastern and western shores of the Dead Sea are marked by a series of terraces, manifestly water-lines of some remote ages. The highest is ve7 distinctly seen on the mountain-chain of Moab, extending along the tops of the cliffs like a huge shelf. Its eleva tion appears to be about 1300 feet ; and on the western range, at various places, there is a corre sponding terrace. This terrace has been frequently noticed by travellers, but special attention was recently given to it by Mr. Tristram, who remarks : These terraces in the old secondary limestone must be about the present level of the Mediter ranean, and they seem to tell of a period long ante cedent to the tertiary terraces and deposits below, when the old Indian Ocean wore the rocks and scooped out the caverns, as its unbroken tide swept up from the coasts of Africa ; or when the Salt Sea formed one in a chain of African takes' (Land of Israel, p. 247).
About two hundred and thirty feet above the present level of the Dead Sea are traces of another ancient shore-line, marked by a strip of alluvial marl adhering to the rocks and cliffs, particularly at the north-west angle, and down as far as Ras el Feshkhah p. 256). It is also seen at Wady Derejah and Ain Jidy. The deposit is mixed with shells of existing species, layers of gypsum, and gravel. Where there are ravines running down to the sea between high cliffs, the deposit reaches up their sides in places to a height of four hundred feet, and then slopes away in a series of terraces to the present level of the sea, as if the water had gradually and slowly evaporated. At one point
Tristram counted on the shore no less than eight low gravel terraces, the ledges of comparatively recent beaches, distinctly marked. The highest of these was forty-four feet above the present sea level' (p. 278). At Jebel Shukif, a short distance north of Engedi, Tristram, in addition to the lower terraces noted elsewhere, measured the elevations of three high terraces. The first at a height of three hundred and twenty-two feet, marked by a deposit of marl on limestone ; the second 665 feet, formed of hard limestone ; and the third 1654 feet, of crystalline limestone (Ia'. p. 295).
These features of the Dead Sea valley are of the greatest interest and the highest importance to the geologist, as tending to explain the past physical history of this most extraordinary region, and to show the gradual process of evaporation by which the waters that filled it in some remote age were reduced to their present level.
A few miles north of Ras el-Feshlthah are some confused heaps and long ridges of loose unhewn stones and mounds of earth, to which M. de Smiley has given the name Goumran. The pre sent writer was as unsuccessful as all others since and before his visits, in discovering here any traces of a ruined city, or of the name which the French savan has given to it (cf. Tristram, p. 249 ; Hand book, p. 203).
Ras el-Feshkhah is a bold headland of crystal line limestone, descending from a height of some 1500 feet, in broken cliffs into the deep sea. It bars all passage along the shore ; but Mr. Tristram by great exertions climbed round its face. It is cleft asunder by Wady en-Nar, the continua tion of the Kidron. At the base of the cliff is a vein of bituminous limestone, largely used in the manufacture of little ornaments which are sold to the pilgrims at Jerusalem. The substance seemed to have been partially ejected in a liquid form, and to have streamed down the cliffs. It was generally inixed with flints and pebbles, sometimes covering the boulders in large splashes, and then, in the sea itself, formed the matrix of a very hard conglo merate of gravel and flints. When thrown into the fire it burnt with a sulphurous smell, but would not ignite at the flame of a lamp ' (Tristram, p. 254).
South of Ras el-Feshkhah the cliffs retreat, leav ing a plain along the shore, varying from one to two miles in breadth, and extending to Ain Terabeh, about six miles distant. The plain is an alluvial deposit with layers of gravel, and having spits of pure sand projecting at intervals into the sea. It is partially covered with shrubberies of tamarisk, acacia, and retem ;* and towards the south with dense cane-brakes. The coating of alluvial marl which once covered it is now in many places worn away ; and deep gullies rend it in all directions. Enough remains to show that its top, like that of the plains at the northern and southern ends of the lake, formed the old tertiary level of the waters (Tristram, p. 256).