This was anciently called the Sea of the Plain, Deu 3:17; Deu 4:49, from its situation in the great hollow or plain of the Jordan; the Salt Sea, Deu 3:17; Jos 15:5, from the extreme saltness of its waters; and the East Sea, Eze 47:18; Joe 2:20, from its situation relative to Judea, and in contradistinction to the West Sea, or Mediterranean. It is likewise called by Josephus, and by the Greek and Latin writers generally, Lacus Asphaltites, from the bitumen found in it and the Dead Sea, its more frequent modern appellation, from a tradition, commonly though erroneously received, that no living creature could exist in its saline and sulphureous waters. It is at present known in Syria by the names of Almotanah and Bahar Loth: and occupies what may be considered as the southern extremity of the vale of Jordan; forming, in that direction, the western boundary to the Holy Land. The Dead Sea is about seventy miles in length, and twenty in breadth at its broadest part; having, like the Caspian, no visible communication with the ocean. Its depth seems to be altogether unknown; nor does it appear that a boat has ever navigated its surface. Toward its southern extremity, however, in a contracted part of the lake, is a ford, about six miles over, made use of by the Arabs: in the middle of which they report the water to be warm; indicating the presence of warm springs beneath. In general, toward the shore, it is shallow; and rises and falls with the seasons, and the quantity of water carried into it by seven streams, which fall into this their common receptacle, the chief of which is the Jordan.
The water now covering these ruins occupies what was formerly the vale of Siddim; a rich and fruitful valley, in which stood the five cities, called the cities of the plain, namely, Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Bela or Zoar: the four first of which were destroyed, while the latter, being “a little city,” was preserved at the intercession of Lot; to which he fled for refuge from the impending catastrophe, and where he remained in safety during its accomplishment.
The specific gravity of the waters of the Dead Sea is supposed to have been much exaggerated by the ancient writers, but their statements are now proved to be by no means very wide of the truth. Pliny says, that no living bodies would sink in it; and Strabo, that persons who went into it were borne up to their middle. Van Egmont and Heyman state, that, on swimming to some distance from the shore, they found themselves, to their great surprise, lifted up by the water. “When I had swam to some distance,” says the latter, “I endeavoured to sink to the bottom, but could not; for the water kept me continually up, and would certainly have thrown me upon my face, had I not put forth all the strength I was master of, to keep myself in a perpendicular posture; so that I walked in the sea as if I had trod on firm ground, without having occasion to make any of the motions necessary in treading fresh water; and when I was swimming, I
was obliged to keep my legs the greatest part of the time out of the water. My fellow traveller was agreeably surprised to find that he could swim here, having never learned. But this proceeded from the gravity of the water, as this certainly does from the extraordinary quantity of salt in it.”
Mr. Joliffe says, he found it very little more buoyant than other seas, but he did not go out of his depth. “The descent of the beach,” he says, “is so gently gradual, that I must have waded above a hundred yards to get completely out of my depth, and the impatience of the Arabians would not allow of time sufficient for this.” Captain Mangles says: “The water is as bitter and as buoyant as the people have reported. Those of our party who could not swim, floated on its surface like corks. On dipping the head in, the eyes smarted dreadfully.” With regard to the agents employed in this catastrophe, there might seem reason to suppose that volcanic phenomena had some share in producing it; but Chateaubriand’s remark is deserving of attention. “I cannot,” he says, “coincide in opinion with those who suppose the Dead Sea to be the crater of a volcano. I have seen Vesuvius, Solfatara, Monte Nuovo in the lake of Fusino, the peak of the Azores, the Mamalif opposite to Carthage, the extinguished volcanoes of Auvergne; and remarked in all of them the same characters; that is to say, mountains excavated in the form of a tunnel, lava, and ashes, which exhibited incontestable proofs of the agency of fire.” After noticing the very different shape and position of the Dead Sea, he adds: “Bitumen, warm springs, and phosphoric stones are found, it is true, in the mountains of Arabia; but then, the presence of hot springs, sulphur, and asphaltos is not sufficient to attest the anterior existence of a volcano.” The learned Frenchman inclines to adopt the idea of Professors Michaelis and Busching, that Sodom and Gomorrah were built upon a mine of bitumen; that lightning kindled the combustible mass, and that the cities sunk in the subterraneous conflagration. M. Malte Brun ingeniously suggests, that the cities might themselves have been built of bituminous stones, and thus have been set in flames by the fire of heaven. We learn from the Mosaic account, that the vale of Siddim, which is now occupied by the Dead Sea, was full of “slime pits,” or pits of bitumen. Pococke says: “It is observed, that the bitumen floats on the water, and comes ashore after windy weather; the Arabs gather it up, and it serves as pitch for all uses, goes into the composition of medicines, and is thought to have been a very great ingredient in the bitumen used in embalming the bodies in Egypt: it has been much used for cerecloths, and has an ill smell when burnt. It is probable that there are subterraneous fires, that throw up this bitumen at the bottom of the sea, where it may form itself into a mass, which may be broken by the motion of the water occasioned by high winds; and it is very remarkable, that the stone called the stone of Moses, found about two or three leagues from the sea, which burns like a coal, and turns only to a white stone, and not to ashes, has the same smell, when burnt, as this pitch; so that it is probable, a stratum of the stone under the Dead Sea is one part of the matter that feeds the subterraneous fires, and that this bitumen boils up out of it.” To give force to this last conjecture, however, it would be requisite to ascertain, whether bitumen is capable of being detached from this stone, in a liquid state, by the action of fire. The stone in question is the black fetid limestone, used at Jerusalem in the manufacture of rosaries and amulets, and worn as a charm against the plague. The effluvia which it emits on friction, is owing to a strong impregnation of sulphuretted hydrogen. If the buildings were constructed of materials of this description, with quarries of which the neighbouring mountains abound, they would be easily susceptible of ignition by lightning. The Scriptural account, however, is explicit, that “the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from heaven;” which we may safely interpret as implying a shower of inflamed sulphur, or nitre. At the same time it is evident, that the whole plain underwent a simultaneous convulsion, which seems referable to the consequences of a bituminous explosion. In perfect accordance with this view of the catastrophe, we find the very materials, as it were, of this awful visitation still at hand in the neighbouring hills; from which they might have been poured down by the agency of thunder storms, directed by the hand of offended Heaven. Captains Irby and Mangles collected, on the southern coast, lumps of nitre and fine sulphur, from the size of a nutmeg up to that of a small hen’s egg, which, it was evident from their situation, had been brought down by the rain: “their great deposit must be sought for,” they say, “in the cliff.” These cliffs then were probably swept by the lightnings, and their flaming masses poured in a deluge of fire upon the plain.
Dead Sea [SEA]
See SEA.\par
The name in the Old Testament is never this, but "the Salt Sea" , "sea of the plain."
(mare mortuum, Justin, 36:3, 6;
Dead Sea. See Salt Sea.
See SALT SEA.
By: Emil G. Hirsch, Frants Buhl
Composition of the Water.
Lake in southeast Palestine, and one of the curious natural phenomena of the earth. It occupies the lowest part of the great depression which extends from northern Palestine to the Gulf of Akabah. At its most northerly point 150 meters above the level of the Mediterranean, the depression south of the Dead Sea rises to a height of 240 meters. The surface of the Dead Sea is 394 meters, and its greatest depth not less than 793 meters, below the level of the Mediterranean. Therefore the present formation of the basin prohibits any outflow, and geological investigations have shown that there never was one. The Jordan pours daily 6,000,000 tons of water into the Dead Sea; but since about an equal amount is daily evaporated, the level remains nearly the same, varying only from 4 to 6 meters with the change of seasons. Owing to this evaporation, to the mineral character of its own basin, and to the constant addition of saline elements from the Jordan, the water of the Dead Sea contains a large proportion of mineral matter, chiefly salt, chlorids of magnesium and calcium. It is consequently bitter to the taste and has an oily consistency. It is likewise extremely buoyant. The human body floats well out of the water, and diving is almost impossible. With the exception of some microscopic protophytes—namely, fresh-water diatoms and pathogenic microbes—nothing can live in the waters of the Dead Sea. Even salt-water fish die in it, and the bodies of fresh-water fish carried down by the Jordan float on the surface in great numbers. It is not true, however, that birdsflying over the sea die. Another peculiarity is the amount of asphalt that floats in large quantities on the surface. This is probably due to the great prevalence of sulfur on the shores.
Description of Vicinity.
The Dead Sea is enclosed east and west by mountain ridges, which, forming to the northwest the headland Ras Feshkhah, descend abruptly into the water. Elsewhere on the west the ridges are separated from the sea by a barren strip of land, of which the only cultivable part lies below the spring Engedi. On the east the mountains descend precipitously to the water's edge, except where a fertile little plain marks the months of a wadi. In the southern part, at the mouth of the Wadi beni Hammad, there is an extensive level stretch, forming the large peninsula Al-Lisan. This peninsula—which in its southern extremity is rich in salt—divides the sea into two unequal parts; the smaller and shallower in the south, and the larger in the north, where the sea is deeper. On the southern shore of the sea is an open barren plain, Al-Sabkhah, the brown soil of which is flecked with salt. Toward the west rises a high ridge, Jabal Usdum, which is composed almost entirely of salt.
Names Given to It.
The Dead Sea, known at present as "Baḥr Luṭ" (Lot's Sea), is called in the Old Testament "Sea of Arabah" (R. V. Deut. iii. 17; Josh. xii. 8), "East" or "Eastern Sea" (Ezek. xlvii. 18; Joel ii. 20; Zech. xiv. 8). and "Salt Sea" (Gen. xiv. 3). The Talmud refers to it as "Salt Sea," or the "Sea of Sodom"; and Josephus and Pliny call it "Lake Asphaltites." The name "Dead Sea" is used by Pausanias, Justin, and the Church Fathers. Josephus ("B. J." iv. 8, § 4) mentions the salty taste of its water, the impossibility of diving in it, its change of color, and the great floating blocks of asphalt, which were used for calking ships and for medicinal purposes. Similar descriptions are given by Tacitus ("Hist." v. 6) and Pliny ("Hist. Naturalis," v. 15). The Talmud (Shab. 108b) mentions the density of the water, and says that a bath in the Dead Sea is considered good for certain ills, especially diseases of the eye, although the salt extracted from the sea was considered noxious to the eyes (Ḥul. 105b). Because of the poisonous air about the sea no ship sailed on it (Hirschensohn, "Sefer Sheba' Ḥokmot," 1888, p. 173).
View Of The Dead Sea.(From a photograph by Bonfils.)References to It in Old Testament.
The destruction of the five cities of Sodom, which, according to the Old Testament, were near the Dead Sea (Gen. xiv. 3), is intimately connected with the geological history of the region. After the great depression of the Jordan valley, with its southern continuation, had been formed, it became the basin of a mighty sea during the heavy rains of the diluvian epoch. The surface of this sea—which stretched from the watershed of the Araba valley, south of the Dead Sea, to the Sea of Galilee—was 426 meters above the present level of the Dead Sea, and about 30 meters above that of theMediterranean. Traces of fresh-water vegetation show that the water did not then contain nearly so much salt as at present. It became salty as it sank, leaving that great deposit of salt to the south, of which the Jabal Usdum is a remnant. A second rising of the water produced the high terraces lying south of the sea and extending along both sides of the Jordan; and a third gave rise to the lower terraces lying in front of the others.
History of Its Formation.
Blanckenhorn conjectured that an earthquake depressed the bottom of the valley south of the sea, where the five cities were situated, causing the salt sea to flood it. He sees a connection between the asphalt pits of the valley of Siddim and the large amount of asphalt in the southern part of the sea, and thinks that an earthquake might have freed the gases of petroleum and asphalt confined in the earth. These could easily have become ignited, thus causing the catastrophe. The event would naturally have been preserved by tradition; and it does actually figure in extra-Biblical accounts. Justin attributes to it the separation and emigration of the Canaanitish tribes.
Bibliography:
Reland, Palästina, pp. 238 et seq.;
Robinson, Palestine, ii. 448 et seq.;
idem, Physical Geography of the Holy Land, pp. 204 et seq.;
Ritter, Erdkunde, ii. 1, 553 et seq.;
De Saulcy, Voyage Autour de la Mer Morte, 1853;
Fraas, Das Todte Meer, 1867;
Tuch, Ueber den Ursprung des Todten Meeres, 1863;
Duc de Luynes, Voyage, d'Exploration
Blanckenhorn, Entstehung und Gesch. des Todten Meeres, in Zeit. Deutsch. Paläst. Ver. xix. 1 et seq.;
idem, Noch Einmal Sodom und Gomorra, xxi. 65 et seq. (against the view here expressed see Die Katastrophe in Sodom und Gomorra, in Mittheilungen der K. K. Geographischen Gesellschaft, i., ii., Vienna, 1897);
Krätzschmar, Der Mythus von Sodoms Ende, in Zeitschrift des Deutschen Paläst. Vereins, xvii. 81 et seq.
DEAD SEA.—An inland lake 47 miles long and from 2¾ to 9 miles in breadth, which receives the waters of the Jordan. Its level is 1293 ft. below that of the Mediterranean, being the lowest body of water on the surface of the earth. It has no outlet, and the water received by it is all carried off by evaporation. In consequence, the waters of the Lake are impregnated with mineral substances to a remarkable degree; they yield 25 per cent. of salt, whereas the ocean yields but 4 to 6 per cent.
The modern name is of late origin (first used apparently by Pausanias) and refers to the total absence of life in its waters. It has no Scripture warrant; Hebrew writers speak of it as the ‘Salt Sea’ (Gen 14:8, Num 34:3, Jos 15:5 etc.), the ‘sea of the Arabah’ (Deu 3:17; Deu 4:49), the ‘east or eastern sea’ (Eze 47:18, Joe 2:20). In Arabic it is known as Bahr Lut, ‘the sea of Lot,’ a name which, however, is more probably due to the direct influence of the history as related in the Koran than to a survival of local tradition. Somewhere near the sea were Sodom and Gomorrah, but whether north or south of it is not settled; the one certain fact about their sites is that the popular belief that they are covered by the waters of the Lake is quite inadmissible.
The Dead Sea owes its origin to a fault or fracture produced in the surface of the region by the earth-movements whereby the land was here raised above the sea-level. This fault took place towards the end of the Eocene period; it extends along the whole Jordan valley from the Gulf of Akabah to Hermon; and it may be taken as fairly certain that the general appearance of the Lake has not radically altered during the whole time that the human race has existed in the world.
Round the border of the Lake are numerous small springs, some bursting actually under its waters, others forming lagoons of comparatively brackish water (as at ‘Ain Feshkhah on the western side). In these lagoons various specimens of small fish are to be found; but in the main body of the water itself life of any kind is impossible.
Recent observations tend to show that the surface of the Lake is slowly rising. An island that was a conspicuous feature at the N. end disappeared under the surface in 1892, and has never been seen since.
R. A. S. Macalister.
Lake about 47 miles long, 10 miles wide, on the southeastern border of Palestine, 16 miles east of Jerusalem, into which flow the River Jordan and other streams. Although 6,500,000 tons of fresh water pour into it every day, there is no outlet, the excess water being taken off by evaporation, and the water is so salt that no organic life can exist in it. In the Old Testament it is called "sea of the wilderness" (Jos. 1:3); "east sea" (Joel, 2; Zachariah 14); "salt sea" (Genesis 14); and "sea of the desert" (Deuteronomy 3).
The name given to the lake that lies on the south-eastern border of Palestine. The Old Testament makes frequent reference to it under a variety of titles; once only, however, by its present one. The Vulgate’s rendering of Josue (iii, 16) reads, mare solitudinis (quod nunc vocatur Mortuum) translated in the D.V. "the sea of the wilderness (which now is called the Dead Sea)". In the Septuagint the verse reads ten thalassan Araba, thalassan halos, which the A.V. gives thus: "towards the sea of the plain, even the salt sea" and the R.V., "the sea of the Arabah, even the salt sea". In Joel (ii, 20) the prophet speaks of "the east sea"; and the apocryphal Fourth Book of Esdras (v, 7) speaks of the mare Sodomiticum — the Sodomitish Sea. Josephus, Pliny, and other profane writers, among other names, called it the Lake of Asphalt; Asphaltitis limne and Lacus Asphaltites. The present-day inhabitants of its vicinity call it Bahr Lut — the Sea of Lot.The Dead Sea is the final link of the chain of rivers and lakes that lies in the valley of the Jordan. Taking its rise on the southern slopes of Mt. Hermon, the Jordan in its southern course first spreads out into Lake Merom, emerging from which it flows into the Lake of Tiberias, whence it descends into the Dead Sea. To convey a proper idea of the size and shape of the Dead Sea travellers often compare it to the Lake of Geneva. The resemblance between the two is striking in almost every particular. The great lake of the Holy Land is forty-seven miles long and about ten miles across at its widest part. Its area is approximately 360 square miles. The surface of the water is 1292 feet below the level of the Mediterranean, which is only a few miles to the west. This extraordinary feature alone singles out the Dead Sea from all other bodies of water. A low-lying peninsula about ten miles wide, called el-Lisan, "the tongue", which runs out from the south-eastern shore to within three miles of the opposite shore, divides the sea into two unequal parts. The northern and larger part is very deep, reaching at one point a depth of 1310 feet. The southern bay is, on the contrary, very shallow, averaging hardly a depth of thirteen feet. In two places it is possible to cross from the peninsula to the opposite shore by means of two fords which are known to the Arabs.The water in the Dead Sea is salt. Every day the Jordan and other affluents pour into it over six and one half million tons of fresh water. There is, however, no outlet to the ocean, and the sole agent whereby this increase is disposed of is evaporation. The power of the sun’s rays in this great pit is, however, so intense that save for a small fluctuation between the wet and dry seasons, the level of the sea does not change, despite the great volume that is added to it. In the water that remains after evaporation solid matters make up 26 per cent of the whole; 7 per cent being chloride of sodium (common salt), the rest being chiefly chlorides of magnesium, calcium, and derivatives of bromium. The chloride of magnesium gives the water a very loathsome taste; the chloride of calcium an oily appearance. The specific gravity of the water is 1.166. The presence of so much salt explains well the weird name of the sea, since save for a few microbes, no organic life can exist in it. Even fish from the ocean perish when put into it. The human body will not sink below the surface. Bathing, however, in the Dead Sea can hardly be styled a pleasure, as the water is very irritating to the skin and eyes. There is, it need hardly be said, no foundation for the statement sometimes made, that birds cannot fly across the water, as occasionally sea-birds can be seen resting on its surface. From time to time large quantities of bitumen rise to the surface from the bottom. Bitumen is also found along the shores and is referred to in Genesis (xiv, 10) where it speaks of the puteos multos bituminis — "many pits of slime". This feature caused the ancients to speak of the sea as the "Lake of Asphalt".The Dead Sea is mentioned in the Old Testament mostly as a boundary. Its formation comes into discussion in the Book of Genesis (xiv, 3) where, speaking of the kings against whom Chodorlahomor fought, the text says: "All these came together into the woodland vale, which is now the salt sea". According to the geologists who have explored the region, the formation of this depression of the earth’s surface does not date from any historical period, but from the later tertiary or early quaternary period. Their theory is that at some remote time the western part of this region, owing to some profound disturbance of the strata, sank far below the eastern part, thus causing the great dissimilarity of the strata of the two sides of the sea. Besides this, the beds of gypsum, marl, flint, and alluvium found at different heights all along the Jordan valley indicate at that one time the entire valley, from the Lake of Tiberias to the Dead Sea, was a lake. Just what were the conditions at the time of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha is only a matter of conjecture. But the words of the text, taken as they stand, prove that in the great catastrophe there was an inundation from the sea. The mooted question as to the sites of Sodom and Gomorrha does not properly enter into this article.It is a very strange sight that this region presents to the eye, especially when seen from some height. On the eastern and western sides great mountains rise up in some places sheer from the water. To the north, the silvery line of the Jordan can be traced as far as the eye can reach. To the south, the hills of solid salt, called Jebel Usdum — Mt. Sodom — and, on a clear day, mountains close to the Red Sea may be seen. Now all is deserted and dead. No vegetation or sign of human occupation greets the traveller. In other days the scene was different. Vessels plied the surface of the sea and many people lived near its shores. The prophecies of Esechiel (xlvii) and of Zacharies (xiv, 8) give one subject of thought on the scene here when the life-giving streams pouring forth from the Temple will have transformed it anew.-----------------------------------SMITH, Hist. Geog. of the Holy Land (London, 1895); BULL, Memoir on the Physical Geology and Geography of Arabia Petrœa, Palestine, etc. (London, 1886, Mount Seir, 1889); LYNCH, Narrative of the U. S. Expedition to . . . the Dead Sea (Washington, 1849); Official Report of the U. S. Expedition, etc. (Washington, 1852); DE LUYNES, Voyage d’ Exploration à la Mer Morte (1875 LARTET, Geologie, in Vol. III of the collection of Duc de Luynes; DE SAULCY, Voyage autour de la Mer Morte (1853); TRISTRAM, The Land of Israel (London, 1882); VIGOUROUX, Manuel Biblique (Paris, 1901), I, 678; Les Livres Saints et la critique rationaliste, 5th ed., IV, 311; GAUTIER in Ency. Biblica, I, col. 1042.JOSEPH V. MOLLOY. Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IVCopyright © 1908 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
One of Palestine’s most unusual geological features is the Dead Sea. It is part of a deep north-south valley that extends along the Jordan River as far as the Gulf of Aqabah (north-eastern arm of the Red Sea) to the south. The Dead Sea, which is the lowest part of this valley, has a water level approximately 400 metres below sea level. It is about seventy-five kilometres long and fifteen kilometres wide. People in ancient times gave it the names Salt Sea and Dead Sea because it was extremely salty and, so far as they could see, nothing could live in it (Num 34:12; Jos 3:16; cf. Eze 47:8-9). (See also PALESTINE, sub-heading ‘Jordan Valley and Dead Sea’.)