LAISH (v*$).—4. The original name of the town of Dan (wh. see), Jg 187-147-292, The variation Leshem (wh. see) occurs in Jos 19*7%s, 2, The father of Palti or Paltiel, to whom Michal, David’s wife, was given by Saul, 1 S 254, 2S 315
LAISHAH (7:5), Is 10%—The name of a place connected with Gallim, and mentioned here along with other localities in Benjamin and Judah. If Gallim be Beit Jala near Bethlehem, Laishah
would also be in that neighbourhood.
LAKE.—The inland waters which may be classed under the term /akes are of two kinds—open and closed. Open lakes, in which the water is fresh, have an outlet in the form of a river or stream by which the unevaporated waters escape; while, in the case of closed lakes having no outlet, the water ΠΕ receive from streams or springs is evaporated as fast as it enters, and as a general result the water of such lakes is salt or brackish. Of both of these varieties we have examples in the cases of the three principal lakes of Palestine; those of Hileh (Merom), Galilee (Tiberias), and the Dead Sea. In the case of the first two, the waters of the Jordan descending from their sources in the Lebanon, augmented by many other streams flowing in from the east and west, enter from the north and pass out from the south ; finally enter- ing at the northern end of the Dead Sea, they pass off into the air by evaporation, there being no outlet from this great reservoir (see ΜΈΒΟΜ, WATERS OF ; GALILEE, L. OF; DEADSEA). These lakes being each described under their own names, only a few points by which they are connected with each other need be noticed here.
(1) The physical origin of the Jordanic lakes.—As the great line of fault and dislocation of the strata known as ‘ the Jordan-Arabah fault’ is now recog- nized as the primary cause of the valley, or line of depression, of that name, it may be inferred that the existence of the lakes is due to unequal sub- sidence in the primeval floor of this line of valley ; the lake basins representing portions where the depression of the original bed was greater than ihe intervening portions now occupied by the river Jordan.* In addition to this cause, which may be called mechanical, it is not improbable
* It should be recollected, however, that these supposed local depressions occurred not from a nearly horizontal floor, but from one inclined from north to south; in other words, from the sources of the Lebanon to the original floor of the Dead Sea —a slope of over 2000 feet in a distance of about 150 miles,
that volcanic action during the Miocene and Pliocene periods may have played an important art in ae formation of these great hollows. The evidences of voleanie action all along the eastern side, and, to a limited extent, along the western side, of the Jordan valley are shown in the vast sheets of lava of the Jaulan, Gilead, and Moab; and it seems a fair inference that the withdrawal of such enormous quantities of matter from the underground magma, and its extrava- sation at the surface, may have resulted in pro- ducing subsidences in the bed of the Jordan valley similar to those known to exist in other voleanic regions, such as Auvergne in Central France and the countries bordering the Mediter- ranean.
(2) Relative levels.—The surface of the Lake of Haleh is 7 feet below that of the Mediterranean, and its depth slight; that of the Sea of Galilee 682 feet below the same level; and that of the Dead Sea 1292 feet: thus the fall between the L. of Hfileh and that of Galilee is 675 feet in a distance of 10 miles, being about 67 feet per mile, that between the L. of Galilee and the Dead Sea 610 feet in a distance of 65 miles, being at the rate of nearly 94 feet per mile; the Jordan is therefore, at least in its upper section, a rapid stream. ‘The above distances are measured in a direct line.
Besides these three most important lakes, we may mention—
(a) L. Phiala (Birket er-Rim), lying at the southern foot of Hermon, a lake, circular in form and about half a mile in diameter, which occupies the crater of an extinct voleano; one of the great group of Trachonitis.* ν᾽
(5) Birket el-Jish.—Another small lake of vol- canic origin, occupying the crater of a truncated cone called Jebel see not far from Safed, on the western side of the Jordan valley.
(c) The Damascus Lakes.—These shallow sheets of water, which in summer are converted into swamps, are fed by the Abana (Nahr Barada) and Pharpar (Nahr Taura) ‘rivers of Damascus’ (2 Καὶ 513). These streams, issuing from the ravines in the Lebanon, by whose springs they are fed, pour their life-giving waters over a tract of the Syrian Desert in which the city of Damascus is situated ; and, assisted by an ancient system of canals and conduits, spread fertility over an area of several hundred square miles, converting it into a garden remarkable both for the richness and the variety of the vegetation, which has been a theme of admiration for all travellers. The Abana traverses the city itself, and its waters are dis- tributed by seven canals and conduits (see DAMAS- cus). Looking at the beneficent effects of the waters of these rivers on the soil of Syria, Naaman seems to have been fully justified from his point of view in exclaiming, ‘Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel ?’ E. HULL.