The exact amount of the depression will of course vary with the rise and fall of the waters at different seasons. Traces along the shore prove that the level has varied as much as fifteen fcet within the past half-century (Robinson, Physical Geography, p. 19o). It is a singular coincidence that the depth and depression of the Dead Sea are very nearly equal, each about 13oo feet ; the eleva tion of Jerusalem above the Mediterranean is about twice, and above the Dead Sea about three times that number (id. p. 19o).
The water of the Dead Sea is more intensely salt than that of any other sea known. It has also a bitter nauseous taste, and leaves upon the skin a slight greasy feeling. Yet it is transparent as the water of the Mediterranean ; and its colour is the same, a delicate green. Its specific gravity, and consequent buoyancy, is very great. The writer floated easily in an upright position with head and shoulders above the surface. Lynch says that eggs, which would have sunk in the ocean, floated here with only two-thirds immersed. This pecu liarity was well known to the ancients (Joseph. Bell. Yzea'. iv. 8. 4 ; Arist. Meteor. ii. 3; see also in Reland, pp. 241, 249).
The following analyses of the water will be use ful to the scientific student, and will best account for the foregoing facts. The water analysed by Dr. Apjohn was lifted half a mile from the mouth of the Jordan, near the close of the rainy season, and naturally exhibits a smaller amount of salt and less specific gravity. That examined by I3ooth. was drawn up by Lynch from a depth of ro feet. The third specimen was taken from the north-west shore in March 1849.
Many other analyses have been made, differing more or less from the foregoing. Such differences must be expected. When tbe sea is flooded by freshets the amount of salts in solution will be less.; when low, after the evaporation of the summer, the amount will be more.
The presence of these foreign ingredients in such quantities is easily accounted for. The washings of the salt range of Usdum, and numerous brackish springs along the shores, supply the salt ; the great sulphur fountain at Callirhoe, and many others on the north and west, with the sulphur, bitumen, iron, etc., found so abundantly in the later deposits, supply the other ingredients. It is known also that large masses of bitumen are occasionally forced up from the bed of the sea ; and it may be that beneath its waves are fountains and deposits more numerous and more remarkable than those in the surrounding rocks and plains. Then, too, the con stant evaporation takes away the pure water, but leaves behind all the salts, which are thus gradually increasing in quantity.
The water is fatal to animal life ; and this fact, according to Jerome, originated the name Dead Sea (ad Ezech. xlviii. 8 ; cf. Galen, a'e Sinzpl. iv.
19). Shells and small fish, in a dead or dying state, have been picked up along the northern shore, and are found in some of the little fountains along the western coast ; but they are all of foreign im portation. Recent investigations have led some to suppose that the Dead Sea does contain and sup port a few inferior organisations ; but the fact has not as yet been established on conclusive evidence {see, however, Grove in Smith's Diet. of the Bible, iii. 1183 d).
Lying in this deep caldron, encompassed by naked white cliffs and white plains, exposed during a great part of the year to the unclouded beams of a Syrian sun, it is not strange that the shores of the Dead Sea should exhibit an almost unexampled sterility, and a death-like solitude ; nor is it strange that in a rude and unscientific age the sea should have become the subject of wild and wondrous superstitions. Seneca relates that bricks would not sink in it. Early travellers describe the lake as an infernal region ; its black and fetid waters always emitting a noisome smoke or vapour, which, being driven over the land, destroys all vegetation like a frost. Hence, too, the popular report that birds cannot fly over its deadly waters ' (Robinson, Phys. Geog. p. 199). Such stories are fabulous. It is true that the tropical heat causes immense evaporation, the exhalations from the sulphurous springs and marshes taint the air for miles, and the miasma of the swamps on the north and south give rise to fevers, and render the ordi nary inhabitants feeble and sickly. But this has no necessary connection with tbe Dead Sea, or the character of its waters. The marshes of Iskan dertin are much more unhealthy than any part of the GhOr. Wherever a copious fountain bubbles up along the shores, or a mountain-streamlet affords water for irrigation, tangled thickets of tropical trees, shrubs, and flowers, spread out their foliage. And there birds sing as sweetly as in more genial dimes, and the Arab pitches his tent like his brethren on the eastern plateau, and an abundant harvest rewards the labours of the husbandman. Tristram exclaims with something of enthusiasm : What a sanitarium Engedi might be made. If it were only accessible, and some enterprising specu lator were to establish a hydropathic establish ment ! Hot water, cold water, and decidedly salt water baths, all supplied by nature on the spot, the hot sulphur springs only three miles off, and some of the grandest scenery man ever enjoyed, in an atmosphere where half a lung is sufficient for re spiration ' (p. 295).