alOllg the shore of these lakes (see I »f. llarmall. Egypt
and the Holy Land, p. 106). This would seem to indicate a continuity of these bodies of water in earlier times. (See further in Laborde. Commentairi Geographiqut sur PExod | Paris, 1841,fol.],p.79 a.)
The great bed of the 1 Inter Lakes extends in a north- erly and southerly direction, and is separated from the Red Sea by a sand-bank 1000 to 5000 meters long, which
is seldom c than one meter higher than the sea. It.
is forty to titty lower than the water-level of the sea basin, and from plain indications was once covered w it Ii the sea (Du Bois Aime'e, in the Descr.di V Egypt. Modi, 188 sq., Ni ed.). Before il bad a connection with the
Nile by means of the well-known canal, and thus re- ceived fresh water, its waters were bitter i Strabo. xvii, Mil). It is a favorite theory that it was originally embraced in the HeroSpolitan Gulf (Stickel, in the Stud. a. Kritiken, 1850, p. 328 sq.). Vet this is no proof that the ancient Heroopolis was situated in the inner
corner of the Arabian Sea (Strabo, xvi, 767; xvii, 836; Pliny, vi, 83), and that \.s-.l> Bailed thence (Strabo,
wi.Ti'.Si; but more probably this city was located far
RED SEA
967
RED SEA
north of Clysma, the modern Kolsum, near the present Suez (Ptolemy, iv, 5, 14, and 54; Itinerar Anton, p. 107, ed. Wess.), namely, somewhere about the modern Abu- Keislied, or Mukfar (Knobel, Commentar zu Exodus, p. 140 sq.). Its ruins are still visible there (Cliampol- liou, Egypt*. Li, 88). Its importance gave name to the entire adjacent nome and to the contiguous gulf. Both were likewise more properly designated from Arsinoe", which was situated near tbe present head of the bay (see Smith, Diet, of Greek and Roman Geography, s. v. "Arsinoe"). This latter seems to have been the official designation of the place which was popularly termed Clysma (namely, the beach, to icXioua [Keland, Palcesti- na, p. 472, 556]).
A rise of the intermediate land has been inferred from the stoppage of the ancient canal along this line; but this can readily be accounted for by the drifting-in of sand and the neglect of the banks. On tbe other hand, that no material change of level has taken place in this region in modern times seems to be proved by the fact that the fresh-water canal now actually con- veys water from the Nile to Suez, just as it formerly did, without any considerable cutting for that purpose. The brackishness of these lakes merely argues a con- nection at some period with the Mediterranean, and not necessarily with the Red Sea likewise, and the shells and other marine indications are probably traces of this connection only. In fact, the immense lagoon of Lake Menziileh still reaches almost to Lake Timsah, the prin- cipal or deepest of the Bitter Lakes, and there is noth- ing but flats and marshes in this direction; whereas southerly the Suez Canal required extensive excava- tions for its continuance to the Gulf of Suez, cutting in some places, not through sand and silted debris merely, but through firm strata of clay and crystalline alabaster.
This theory rests upon so problematical a foundation that it has not been much resorted to in this discussion except for the purpose of strengthening the location of the Israelites' crossing at Suez, by way of showing that the water at the latter point was deeper anciently than now, and so preserving the greater appearance of a mir- acle in the case. It is thus incidentally alluded to by Calmet and Robinson, and by several later writers. But for this purpose, if it proves anything, it proves too much ; for if at the time of the Exodus the Red Sea extended thus far north, there is no occasion to seek for any other place of crossing, so far as a sufficiency of water is concerned.
Aside from these geological and theological specula- tions, there is in favor of this crossing-place only the shorter distance from Belbeis, rendering it an easy three days' journey of only fifteen miles per day to any point that might be selected in the vicinity of Ismailia. The attempt of Fiirst (Hebrew Lexicon, p. 766) to identify Baal-zephon with Heroopolis is mere conjecture; and his remark that Migdol is the Magdolnm of Herodotus (ii, 159) is founded on a mistake (repeated in Smith's Diet, of Greek and Roman Geography, ii, 246), for Me- giddo in Palestine is doubtless there intended. (See Rawlinson, Herod, ii, 207.) The Magdolnm of Egypt was twelve miles west of Pelusium (.4 ntonine Itinerary, p. 14), entirely too remote for the precise indication of locality in the Mosaic narrative.
Against the location of the miracle at the Bitter Lakes are the following facts in the Biblical text: (1.) In order to go round the head of the sea (if thus far north) the Israelites would be obliged to start, not by "the way of the wilderness," as the text states, but pre- cisely by that direct "way of the land of the Philistines" which the text expressly says they did not take (Exod. xiii, 17, 18). (2.) There would be no change of their course requisite or possible in order to reach this point, as the word "turn" (xiv, 2) demands; they were al- ready going on the direct and only route they could well have taken. Indeed, if the region of Lake Timsah were then so low as to be filled from the Red Sea, it is difficult to see how the water from the Mediterranean