Farther south the shore recedes, forming a bay some eight miles in length, the water in places almost wash- ing the base of the cliffs. One wild glen, called Um- Baghek, breaks through the mountains, and sends out a tiny stream with a dense fringe of evergreens. Not far from it is another hot sulphur spring, which spreads its suffocating odors around. On the south the bay is bounded by the oasis of the Waily Zuweireh — a plain of some extent, sprinkled with tamarisks and aeacias, and torn in all directions with torrent-beds, througli which the winter rains and the streamlets from numer-
ous sulphurous and brackish springs find their way to the sea. The clitl's and peaks which rise over the oasis appear from a distance to exhibit traces of vol- canic action, but closer inspection jjroves that there are no igneous rocks here or elsewliere along the western shore. Veins of ruddy limestone, blocks of ironstone, and multitudes of nodules of black flint look like tra])- dikes and craters in the distance. There are, however, a few cinders and scoriui observable here and there along the shore.
A short distance south of the AVady Zuweireh is Jeb- el Usdum, a range of hills running from north to south a distance of seven miles, with an average elevation of three hundred feet, composed of a solid mass of rock- salt. The top and sides are covered with a thick coat- ing of marl, gypsum, and gravel, probably the remains of the Post-tertiary deposit uplifted ui)on the salt. The declivities of the range are steep and rugged, pierced with huge caverns, and the sununit shows a serried line of sharp peaks. The salt is of a greenish-white color, with lines of cleavage as if stratified, and its base reaches far beneath the present surface. The name of the range, Khashm Usdum, appears to preserve a me- morial of the ancient guilty " city of the plain." See Sodom.
At the mouth of the Wady Zuweireh are some heaps of rough stones and the shattered walls of a small tow- er, marked by De Saulcy as the remains of Sodom. That city may have stood in this region, but it requires some power of imagination to identify it with these insignificant ruins.
At the northern end of Jebel Usdum is the mouth of Wady Muhawat, which exhibits some very remark- able geological features. Its sides are cliffs of old lime- stone, showing here and there on their surface traces of Post - tertiary marl; "but since the marl has been washed out there has been a second flUing-in of an ex- traordinary character, which is only now in course of denudation. There are exposed on the sides of the wady, and chiefly on the south, large masses of bitumen mingled with gravel. These overlie a thick stratum of sulphur, which again overlies a thicker stratum of sand so strongl)' impregnated with sulphur that it yields powerful fumes on being sprinkled over a hot coal. Many blocks of the bitumen have been washed down the gorge, and lie scattered over the plain below along with huge boulders and other traces of tremen- dous floods. . . . The layer of sulphurous sand is gener- ally evenh' distributed on the old limestone base, the sulphur evenly above it, and the bitumen in variable masses. In every waj' it differs from the ordinary mode of deposit of these substances as we have seen them elsewhere. Again, the bitumen, unlike that which we pick up on the shore, is strongly impregnated with sulpiuir, and yields an overpowering sulphurous odor; above all, it is calcined, and bears the marks of having been subjected to extreme heat." This discovery is exceedingly important ; and the remarks of Tristram ui)on it will 1)0 read with the deepest interest l>y all students of the Biljlc. "Here, so far as I caji judge, we have the only trace of anything apjiroaching to volcanic action which we have met with in our careful examination of the northern, western, and southern shores. The only other solution of the problem — the existence of a bituminous spring when the supply of water was more al)undant — would scarcely account for the regular deposition of sulpluirous sand, and then of the sand with the bitumen superimposed. I have a great dread of seeking forced corroborations of scriptur- al statements from (piestionablc l)hy^ical evidence, for the sceptic is apt to imagine that wlien he has refuted the wrong argument adduced in support of a scriptural statement, he has refuted the scriptural statement it- self; but, so far as I can un<lerstand this deposit, if there be any jihysical evidence left of tlie catastrophe wliicli destroyed Sodom anil Gomorrah, or of similar occurrences, we have it here. The whole appearance
SALT SEA
264
SALT SEA
points to a shower of hot sulphur, and an irruption of bitumen upon it, which would naturally be calcined and impregnated by its fumes; and this at a geological pe- riod quite subsequent to all the diluvial and alluvial action of which we have such abinidant evidence. The catastrophe must have been since the formation of the wady, since the deposition of the marl, and while the water was at its present level ; therefore, probably dur- ing the historic period" (p. 3o5-o57).
Tiie shore -line runs for nearly three miles south- ward along the base of Jebel Usdum, and then sweeps sharply round to the east, leaving on the south a naked, miry plain called Sabkah, ten miles long from north to south by about six wide. It is in summer coated with a saline crust, but is so low that when the water is high a large section of it is tlooched. Numerous torrent-beds from the salt range on the west, and from the higher ground of the Arabah on the south, run across it, con- verting large portions into impassable swamps. On its southern border the old diluvium terrace rises like a white wall to a height of more tlian two himdred feet. It is only on getting close to it that the sides are seen to be reiit and torn into a thousand fantastic forms by winter torrents and the wearing-away of the softer de- posits. The Sabkah is bountled on the east by Wady Tufeileh, one of the principal drains of the Arabah, and containing a brackish, perennial stream. Beyond it the character of the surfece completely changes. The ground rises in an easy slope to the foot of the Moab Mountains, and is covered with dense thickets of reeds, tamarisk, acacia, retem, zyziphus, and other shrubs, in- termixed with fertile fields, cultivated by the Ghawari- neh Arabs (as the inhabitants of the Ghor are called, here the worst representatives of their race), and pro- ducing abundant crops of wheat, maize, indigo, melons, and cucumbers. Tristram says: "The place positively swarmed with birds in countless myriads. There were doves by the score on every bush, large and small {Turtiir risorius and T. ^E()yi>tius), bulbuls, the hopping-thrush, shrikes, the gorgeous little sun-bird resplendent in the ligiit, and, once more, our new sparrow. The Abj'ssin- ian lark, pipits, and wagtails luxuriated in the moist rills at our feet, which were fringed by drooping tufts of caper (Cupparis ^Eyijptiaca) in full tiower. All teemed with a prodigality of life" (p. 33G).