This fertile tract touches the south-eastern shore of the sea, anil continues along it as it trends north-east
for some five miles to the mouth of the Wady Nimei- reh, becoming gradually narrower as the shore-line ap- proaches the rocky sides of the mountains. The geo- logical formation of this eastern range is different from the western. Tiie front cliffs are red sandstone, appar- ently overlying hard, crystalline limestone, and topped by more recent calcareous rock. Trap boulders and fragments of greenstone and sienite are strewn along the base.
Such are the great southern shores of the Dead Sea. The great valley is here narrower than at the northern shore, not because of any contraction in the mountain- ranges, but arising from the ridge of Usdum, which was evidently thrown up from the bottom of the valley at some period subsequent to the formation of the Arabah. The projecting base of Jebel Usdum on the west, and the high fertile region of Es-Safieh on the east, contract the southern end of the lake into the form of a semi- circular bay about six miles in diameter. A few miles farther north the shores on each side expand so much that the breailth of the sea is almost doubled. The general aspect of the shores is dreary and desolate in the extreme. The salt-incrusted plain, the white downs of the Arabah, the naked line of salt hills, the bare and scathed mountain-ranges on each side, all blazing under the raj's of a vertical sun, form a picture of utter and stern desolation such as the mind can scarcely conceive.
On the northern side of Wady Nimeireh a narrow strip of saline plain, very low and very barren, inter- venes between the shore and the mountains. Here and there, at a little fountain or at the mouth of a ravine, a clump of bushes or a cane-brake may be seen.
The Peninsula ofel-Lisun. "the Tongue"' [see Bay], is the most remarkable feature on the eastern shore. It juts out opposite the great ravine of Kerak. The neck connecting it with the mainland is a strip of low, bare sand, measuring five miles across. In outline the peninsula bears some resemblance to the human foot, the toe projecting northward and forming a sharp promontory. Its length is about nine miles, and from the heel or south-western point to the southern shore- line is seven miles. The main body is a Post-tertiary deposit composed of layers of marl, gypsum, and sandy conglomerate, manifestly coeval with the great diluvial terrace, and corresponding with it in elevation. The top is a table-land, broad towards the south, but gradu- ally narrowing to a serried ridge at the northern end.
The Dead Sea from the heights behind ScUbch (Miisada), showing the wide beach on the western side of the lake
and the luugue-shaped peuiusula.
SALT SEA
265
SALT SEA
It is white and almost entirely destitute of vegetation. The surface is all rent and torn by turrcnt-beds; and the sides are worn away into pyramidal masses resem- bling lines and groups of wliite tents. It is worthy of special note tliat in the wadys and along the shores pieces of sulphur, bitumen, rock-salt, and pumice-stone are found in great profusion. Probably, if examined with care, geological phenomena similar to those in Wady Mahawat might be found on this peninsida, and some' additional light thus thrown upon the destruction of the cities of the plain. Poole says " the soil appear- ed sulphurous" {Journal R. G. iS. xxvi, 62-t)-i).
The little plain at the mouth of Wady Draa, or Ke- rak, affords a striking contrast, in its thickets of ever- greens and luxuriant corn-tields, to the arid desolation of the adjoining peninsula. It is here that the few in- habitants of the peninsula reside, in a wretched village called Mezra'ah.
The shore of the Dead Sea between tlie peninsula and the north-eastern angle has never been tliorough- ly explored. Seetzen, Irby and Mangles, De Saulcy, and more recently the partj^ of the Due de Luynes, visited a few places; and Lieut. Lynch and liis of- ficers touched at several points. A few miles north of el-Lisan the fertile plain called (ihor el-;\ltv.ra"ah ter- minates, and the mountains descend in sublime clitfs of red sandstone almost to the water's edge. Higher up, white, calcareous limestone appears, and forms at this place the main body of the range. Basalt also appears in places, sometimes overlying the limestone as on the plain of Bashan, at others bursting through the sand- stone strata in dikes and veins. The ravines of Mo- jib (Arnon) and Zerka Ma'in appear like huge rents in the mountains. Near the mouth of the latter veins of gray and black trap cut through the sandstone, and a copious fountain of hot, sulphurous water sends a steaming river into the sea amid thickets of palms and tamarisks. This is Callirrhoe, so celebrated in old- en time for its baths. Between this point and the plain of the Jordan volcanic eruptions have produced immense Hows of basaltic rock, portions of which had been overflowed into the valley of the Jordan. Among other smaller basaltic streams three were found border- ing on the eastern edge of the Dead Sea to the south of the little plain of Zarah (M. Lartet's paper to French Academy of Sciences; see in Journal of Sac. Lit. July, 1865, p. 496).