are oak-galls, which he found growing plentifully on dwarf oaks (^Querciis i/ifccforia) in the country beyond the Jordan. He tells us that the Arabs asked him to bite one of these galls, and that tliey laughed when they saw his mouth full of dust. "That these galls are the true Dead Sea apples," it is added, "there can no longer be a question. Nothing can be more beautiful than their rich, glossy, purplish-red exterior; nothing more bitter than their porous and easily pulverized in- terior" (ihul. p. 16). The opinion of Pococke may, we think, be dismissed at once as being a most improbable conjecture. The objection to the tSnlanvm melonr/ena is tliat the plant is not peculiar to the shores or neigh- borhood of the Sea of Sodom, but is generally distribu- ted tliroughout Palestine; besides which it is not likely that tlie fruit of which Josephiis speaks should be rep- resented l)y occasional diseased specimens of the fruit of the egg-apple. We must look for some plant, the normal character of whose fruit comes somewhere near- er to the rcii lired conditions. Seetzen's plant is the same as that mentioned by Burckhardt, Irby and Man- gles, and Kol^insiin, i. e. the 'tisher. Chateaubriand's thorny shrub, wiih fruit like small lemons, may be the Zukbmi {Bidtiniles -I'Jf/i/ptiiiCfi); but it certainly can- not be the tree intended. It is not at all probable that the oak-galls of which Mr. KUiot speaks should be the i'ruit in question ; because these being formed on a tree so generally known as an oak, and being common in all countries, would not have been a subject worthy of es- jiecial remark or have been noticed as something pecul- iar to the district around the Sea of Sodom. The fruit of the ^iisher appears to liave the best claim to represent the apples of Sodom. The Calolropix procern is an In- dian plant, and thrives in the warm valley of 'Ain Jidy, but is scarcely to be found elsewhere in Palestine. The readiness with which its fruit, "fair to the eye," bursts, when pressed, agrees well with .losephus's account ; and, altliough there is a want of suitableness between " the few fibres" of Robinson, and the "smoke and ashes" of the Jewish historian, yet, according to a note by the editor of Seetzen's Letlers, the fruit of the calotropis in winter contains a yellowish dust, in appearance resem- bling certain fungi, but of pungent quality. — Smith. From the fact that, in the song of Moses, it is a vine which is mentioned. Dr. Hooker argues with much force in favor of the colocynth [see (iouKi)], tiie foliage and trailing stem of which are sufhciently vine-like. The general use of the word "apple," in subsequent times, carries our thoughts away from the hal)it of the plant to the ap|iearance of its fruit, whicli in both colocyutli and calotropis is certainly not unlike an apple and very mdike a grape. Notwithstanding the highly authori- tative opinion in favor of the former, we still lean to the calotropis. Found at 'Ain Jidy (Kngedi) and Keferein, and abundantly on the eastern shore, it is decidedly a Dead Sea plant; and there is something in its appear- ance and habit wliich arrests the eye and impresses the iinaginati<in. Mr. Tristram calls it "the strangest and most tropical-loiikiug shrid) he ever saw, having hollow puff-balls by way of fruit," and without hesitation pro- nounces it "the true apple of Sodom" (Truv. p. 2MI). Afterwarils he describes it as a tree "with cork-like, thick, and liglit bark, wrinkled and furrowed, huge glos- sy leaves, rounder tlian those of the laurel, and almost as large as the foliage of the caoutchouc-tree. We might have taken it for a species of spurge (eiiphnrhiii), from the abiMidanee of acrid milk it discharged when broken or punctured ; but IMaundrell at once recognised it as an old acquaintance in Nubia, It was now both in flower and fruit. The blossoms were like those of some sjie- cies of caper, and the fruit like a very large apple in shape antl color — golden yellow — and soft to the touch ; but, if ripe, cracking like a puft'-liall when slightly press- ed, and containing only a long thread of small seeds on a liaU'-open pod, with long silky filaments, which the Hcdawin prize highly, and twist into matches for their lirelocks" {ibid. p. 283), The acrid spurge-like juice at
once suggests the gall in Deut. xxxii.32: "Their vino is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah : their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter." — Fairbairn. See Ai'pi.e of Sodom.
Vinegar (""H ; Sept. and N. T. oIoq ; Vnlg. ace- tiiin). The Helirew term chdmets was ap|)lied to a bev- erage, consisting generally of wine or strong drink turned sour (whence its use was proscribed to the Naz- arite. Numb, vi, 8), but sometimes artiticially made by an admixture of barley and wine, and thus liable to fermentation (Jlishna, Pesac/i. iii, 1). It was acid even to a proverb (Prov. x, "it)), and by itself formed a nau- seous draught (Psa. Ixix, 21), but was serviceable for the purpose ()f sopping bread, as used by laborers ( Puth ii, 14), being refreshing in the heat (Pliny, xxiii, •_'(; ; comp. ii. 49). The degree of its aciiiity may be inferred from Prov. xxv. 20, where its effect on nitre is noticed. See Wine. Similar to the chomets of the Hebrews was the acetitm of the Romans — a thin, sour wine, consumed by soldiers (Veget. 7> Re Mil. iv, 7) either in a pure state or, more usually, mixed with water, when it was termed posca (Pliny, xix, 20; Spartian. Ihtdr. 10). This was the beverage of which the Saviour partook in his dy- ing moments (]Matt. xxvii, 48 ; Mark xv, 36; John xix. 29, 30), and doubtless it was refreshing to his exhausted frame, though offered in derision either on that occasion or previously (Luke xxiii, 36). 'I'he same liquid, min- gled with gall (as Matthew states, probably with the view of marking the fidtilment of the prediction in Psa. Ixix, 21). or with myrrh (as Jlark states, with an eye to the exact historical fact), was offered to the Saviour at an earlier stage of his sufferings, in order to deaden the perception of pain (Matt, xxvii, 34; Mark xv, 23). —Smith. See Grabiier. De Pusca (Misen. 1701) ; Pfaflf, l)e FMe Esca (Tub. 1755); Byiucus, De Morte Jesu Chr. iii, 265. See Cuucikixion.