On the west side of the .Jordan, opposite Bashan, are two other lava-fields. The northern has its centre about three miles north-west of Safed, near the village of Jish. Dr. Pobinson thus describes it: "We soon came out upon a high open plain; and the volcanic stones in- creased as we advanced, until they took the place of every other; and, besides covering the surface of the ground, seemed also to compose the solid formation of the tract. In the midst of this plain we came upon heaps of black stones and lava, surrounding what had evidently once been the crater of a volcano. It is an oval basin, sunk in the plain . . . between three and four hundred feet in length, and about one hundred and twent}' feet in breadth. The depth is perhaps forty feet. The sides are shelving, but steep and ragged, obviously composed of lava ; of which our friend Mr. Hebard had been able to distinguish three different kinds or ages. . . . All around it are the traces of its former action, exhibited in the strata of lava and the vast masses of volcanic stones. It may not improba- bly have been the central point, or A bleiter, of the earth- quake of 1837" {B. R. ii, 444). From this place the lava -streams and boulders radiate to a considerable distance. The high terrace which projects from the eastern side of this ridge to the Jordan below Merom is chiefly basalt ; but it seems to be connected with the Hauran field, as it is of a hard, firm texture, while that of Jish is soft and porous.
Another centre of volcanic action in former ages is on the high plain south-west of Tiberias, called Ard el-Hamma. The whole plain is a lava-field; and the double peak of Kurun Hattin, on its north side, is basalt, and so also is the ridge which bounds the Sea of Galilee on the south. The rock is similar to that of Bashan.
The thickness of the bed may be seen in the cliffs on the mountain-side behind the warm baths of Tiberias. The base of these cliffs is limestone, while the whole superincumbent mass is black or dark-gray basalt. This field extends northward to the plain of Gennesaret, westward to Sefiirieh, and southward to Esdraelon. The soil covering it is thick black mould like that of Bashan. It appears that the greater portion of the substratum of Esdraelon is basalt hidden beneath the soil (Wilson, ii, 304). But Jebel ed-Duhy (Little Her- mon), and all the hills south of the plain, are lime- stone ; and volcanic rock is not again seen in West- ern Palestine (Anderson, Geological Reconnaissance in Lynch's Official Rejwrt, p. 124 sq.). On the east of the Dead Sea basalt appears in boulders dotting the plateau between the rivers Arnon and Kerak ; and Burckhardt says it is more porous than any specimens he had found farther northward {Travels, p. 375 ; Anderson, p. 191).
But the grand geological feature of Palestine is the central valley or chasm. Hugh Miller has said, "The natural boundaries of the geographer are rarely de- scribed by straight lines. Whenever these occur, the geologist may look for something remarkable" {Old Red Sandstone, p. 120), No better proof of this could be found than the Jordan valley. It runs in a straight line through the centre of Palestine. Its formation was probably simultaneous with those volcanic agen- cies that created the eastern and western lava-fields. It is a tremendous rent or fissure a hundred and fifty miles in length, rending asunder the whole limestone strata from top to bottom. Its extreme depth from the lips of the fissure to the bed of the Dead Sea is above 4000 feet, no less than 2G24 of which is beneath the level of the ocean. Such a cleft in the earth's crust is without a parallel. It is singidar that, though the rent was doubtless effected by a volcanic convulsion, and though volcanic rock covers such a large area on both sides of the northern part of the valley, there are no traces of it in the southern and deepest part, except at one or two points to be afterwards noticed. The sides of the valle}-, and the rock in its bed, so far as visible, are limestone, ranged occasionally in horizontal strata, but usually upheaved and tossed into wild confusion. Along the eastern shore of the Dead Sea the limestone strata give place to sandstone. The sides of the valley, and the general conformation of the adjoining ridges, would seem to indicate that the limestone crust had been heaved up bj' some tremendous volcanic agency running from south due north, and causing that huge rent wliich forms the basin of the Dead Sea and the Jordan valley. The evidences and often fearful results of recent as well as remote volcanic agency are visible along the whole Jordan valley, and over a large section of the adjoining districts. Beginning at the north we have the crater of Jish, extinct indeed at the surface, but giving palpable proof in tremendous throes of earthquakes that internal fires are still raging. Next follow the copious saline springs of Tabighah, on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee; then the sulphu- reous springs of Tiberias, where the water gushes from the rock at a temperature of 144° Fahr. On the east- ern side of the Jordan, in the glen of the Yarmuk, are the still hotter and more copious springs of Amatha, issuing from beneath lofty cliffs of igneous rock (Burck- hardt, p. 37C ; Porter, Handbook for S. and P. p. 320, 423). It is deserving of special note that at the time of the great earthquake of 1837, and on evcrj' recur- rence of an earthquake in the region, these springs well out in much greater abundance, and their waters in- crease in warmth. There is thus evidently a subterra- nean connection between them. The towns and vil- lages which have been most severely shaken by earth- quakes in this region are those situated on the trap- fields; while villages between them built upon the limestone strata liave in many cases escaped almost without injury. Proceeding still farther south, we find the " copious salt-springs" of Wady Malih, where the