a lower section of the great Jordan val- ley. The utter loneliness and absolute stillness of the scene are exceedingly impressive. It seems as if all nature had gone to rest, languishing un- der that scorching heat. How diff"erent it was in the days of our Lord ! Then all was life and bustle along the shores ; the cities and villages that thickly studded
GALILEE
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GALILEO GALILEI
Cliem resounded with tlie hum of a busy population, •while from hill-side and cornfield conic the cheerful cry of shepherd and plouglunan. The lake, too, was dotted with dark lishiny-b(iats, and spangled -with white sails. Now, a niournfiil and solitarj' silence reigns alike over sea and shore. The cities are in ruins. Capernaum, Chorazin, the two (.') Betbsaidas, Hippo, Ganiala, and Tarichea;, are completely deserted. Ti- berias and ^Nlagdala are the onlj^ inhabited spots ; and for several miles inland in every direction the coun- try looks waste and desolate. The inhabitants — mer- chants, lishermen, and peasants — are nearly all gone. The few that remain in the shattered houses of Tibe- rias, and the mud hovels of Magdala, and the black tents of the wandering Bedouin, seem worn and wasted by poverty and sickness. In 1858 the Sea of Galilee could just boast of one small boat, and it was so rotten and leaky as not to be seaworthy. The fish, however, are as abundant as ever ; for though onl}' little hand- nets are used, a considerable sum is paid to the gov- ernment for the privilege of fishing (Burckhardt, Trav- els in Syria, p. 332 ; Kobinson, ii, 386). It was ob- served by Hasselquist that some of the same species of fish are found in the Sea of Galilee as in the Nile (Travels, p. 158) ; the same fact had been noted by Jo- sejjhus (War, iii, 10, 8). The kinds referred to arc Cyprinus Benni, Silurus, Morinyrus, etc. (See Wilson's Lands of the Bible, ii, 113 ; Itobinson, ii, 386). Two modes are now employed to catch the fish. One is a hand-net, with which a man, usuall}' naked (John xxi, 7), stalks along the shore, and, watching his opportu- nity, throws it round the game with a jerk. The other mode is still more curious. Bread-crumbs arc mixed up with bichlorid of mercury, and sown over the wa- ter ; the fish swallow the poison and die. The dead bodies float, are picked up, and taken to the market of Tiberias ! (Porter, Hand-booh, p. 432.) The water of the lake is sweet, cool, and transparent; and as the beach is everywhere pebbly, it has a beautiful spark- ling look. This fact is somewhat strange, when we consider that it is exposed to the powerful rays of the .■;un, that man}' warm and brackish springs flow into it, and that it is supplied by the Jordan which rushes into its northern end, a turbid, ruddy torrent.
The most remarkable fact in the physical geography of the Sea of Galilee is its great depression. The re- sults of barometrical observations have varied between 8-15 feet and 666 feet, but according to the trigonomet- rical surve}' of Lieut. Symonds, K.E., in 1841, its de- pression is only 328 feet. In this Van de Vekle thinks there must have been some mistake, and he adheres to the figures of Lieut. L}'nch, which give 653 feet, as probablj' the most accurate (^Memoir, p. 168, 181). This has a marked effect on the temperature, climate, and natural products. The heat is intense during the summer mouths. The harvest on the shore is nearly a month earlier than on the neighl)oring high lands of Galilee and liashan. Frost is imknown, and snow very rarely falls. The trees, plants, and vegetables are those usually found in Egypt; such as the palm, the lote-tree (^Zizijphus lofns), the indigo plant, etc. (lloliinson, ii, 388; Josephus, War, iii, 10, 7 and 8). The surrounding hills are sometimes described as bare and barren, sometimes as green and fertile. In April the tops of the hills are gray and rocky, and destitute of vegetation. Lower down, the grass, which during the winter rains had flourished, is there withering in the sun (Matt, xiii, 6) ; but in the valle3-s and ravines, wherever any of the manj' fountains and streams gushed forth, there is verdure and cultivation (Matt, xiii, 8). Though the Avhole basin of the lake, and in- deed the Jordan valley, is of volcanic origin, as evi- denced by the thermal springs and the frequent eartli- quakes, yet the main formation of the surroundtiig wall of mountains is limestone. A large number of lilack stones and boulders of basaltic tufa are scattered along the slopes and upland plains, and dikes of basalt here
and there burst through the limestone strata in the neighborhood of Tiberias and along the northern shore. Although the surface of the lake is usually very placid, yet travellers (Thomson, Land and Book, ii, 3-_' ; llack- ett, Illtistra. of Scripture, p. 319) testify to the sudden fury of storms bursting down into this sunken basin through the ravined shore as in the days of our Sav- iour (Luke viii, 23 ; see Michaelis, De iemjustaie, etc., Hal. 1739 ; also Be sensu spiriiuuli tempestaiis, etc., ib. eod. ; Duthovius, Divinilus Chr. ex miraculo hoc demon- strata, in the Bibl. Brem. i, 60-85 ; ii, 484-7). — Kitto, s. V. See Genxesareth ; Sea.