so called from the great quantity of bitumen it produces; called also the dead sea; and from its situation, the east sea; the salt sea, the sea of Sodom, the sea of the desert, and sea of the plain, by the sacred writings: A lake of Judea. Many things have been said and written of this famed, or, if they were indeed true, rather infamous lake; such as that it arose from the submersion of the vale of Siddim, where once stood, as is commonly reported, the three cities which perished in the miraculous conflagration, with those of Sodom and Gomorrah, for their unnatural and detestable wickedness; on which account this lake has been looked upon as a lasting monument of the just judgment of God, to deter mankind from such abominations. Hence it is added, that the waters of the lake are so impregnated with salt, sulphur, and other bituminous stuff, that nothing will sink or live in it; and that it calls such stench and smoke, that the very birds die in attempting to fly over it. The description likewise of the apples that grew about it, fair without, and only ashes and bitterness within, were looked upon as a farther monument of God's anger. So likewise the description which many travellers give not only of the lake, but of all the country round about, of the whole appearing dreadful to behold, all sulphureous, bituminous, stinking, and suffocating; and lastly, what hath been farther affirmed of the ruins of the five cities being still to be seen in clear weather, and having been actually seen in these later times; all these surprising things, and ill-grounded notions, though commonly, and so long, received among Christians, have been of late so much exploded, not only by the testimony of very credible witnesses, but even by arguments drawn from scripture, that we must give them up as inventions, unless we will suppose the face and nature of all these things to have been entirely changed. Those, in particular, of bodies not sinking in the water, and of birds being stifled by the exhalations of it, appear now false in fact. 'Tis true, the quantity of salt, alum, and sulphur, with which it is impregnated, render it so much specifically heavier (Dr Pocock says one-fifth) than fresh water, that bodies will not so easily sink; yet that author, and others, assure us, they have swam and dived in it; and, as to the birds, we are told likewise, that they will fly over it without any harm. To reconcile these things with Vespaian's experiments which Pliny tells us had been made by Vespaian, is impossible, without supposing that those ingredients have been since much exhausted, which is not at all improbable; such quantities of them, that is, of the bitumen and salt, having been all along, and being still taken off, and such streams of fresh water continuously pouring into it, as may reasonably be supposed to have considerably diminished its gravity and density.

For, with respect to its salt, we are told, the Arabs make quantities of it from that lake, in large pits about the shore, which they fill with that water, and leave to be crystallized by the sun. This salt is in some cases much commended by Galen, as very wholesome, and a strengthener of the stomach, &c. on account of its unpleasant bitterness.

What likewise relates to the constant smoke ascending from the lake, its changing the colour of its water three times a day, so confidently affirmed by Josephus and other ancients, and confirmed by prince Radziwill and other moderns, who pretend to have been eye-witnesses of it, is all now in the same manner exploded by others of more modern date, and of at least equal candor. The unhealthiness of the air about the lake was affirmed by Josephus and Pliny, especially on the west; the monks that live in the neighbourhood confirm the same, and would have dissembled Dr Pococke from going to it on that account; and, as he ventured to go and bathe in it, and was, two days after, seized with a dizziness, and violent pain in the stomach which lasted near three weeks, they made no doubt but it was occasioned by it; and doth not seem to contradict them. As to the water, it is, though clear, so impregnated with salt, that those who dive into it, come out covered with a kind of saline matter. There is one remarkable thing relating to this lake, generally agreed on by all travellers and geographers; viz., that it receives the waters of Jordan, a considerable river, the brooks of Jabok, Kishon, Arnon, and other springs which flow into it from the adjacent mountains, and yet never overflows, tho' there is no visible way to be found by which it discharges that great influx. The common opinion is, that it hath some subterraneous vent, either into the Mediterranean, or the Red sea; but Dr Shaw hath endeavoured to account for it in the same ingenious way as Dr Halley had done by the Mediterranean, that is, by exhalation, without having recourse to any other solution. It is inclosed on the east and west with exceeding high mountains, many of them craggy, and dreadful to behold; on the north it has the plain of Jericho; or, if we take in both sides of the Jordan, it has the Great Plain, properly so called, on the south; which is open, and extends beyond the reach of the eye. Josephus gives this lake 580 furlongs in length, from the mouth of the Jordan to the town of Segor, on the opposite end; that is, about 22 leagues; and about 150 furlongs, or five leagues, in its largest breadth; but our modern accounts commonly give it 24 leagues in length, and six or seven in breadth. On the west side of it is a kind of promontory, where they pretend to show the remains of Lot's metamorphosed wife. Josephus says it was still standing in his time; but when prince Radziwill inquired after it, they told him there was no such salt pillar or statue to be found in all that part. However, they have found means, about a century after him, to recover, as they pretended to assure Mr Maundrell, a block or stump of it, which may in time grow up, with a little art, into its ancient bulk.

It is to be observed here, that the name of Dead sea is not to be found in the sacred writings, but hath been given to this lake because no creature will live in it, on account account of its excessive saltness, or rather bituminous quality; for the Hebrews rank sulphur, nitre, and bitumen, under the general name of salt. However, some late travellers have found cause to suspect the common report of its breeding no living creature; one of them having observed, on the shore, two or three shells of fish like those of an oyster, and which he supposes to have been thrown up by the waves, at two hours distance from the mouth of the Jordan, which he there takes notice of, lest they should be suspected to have been brought into the lake by that way. And Dr Pococke, though neither saw fish nor shells, tells us, on the authority of a monk, that some sort of fish had been caught in it; and gives us his opinion, that as so many forts live in salt-water, some kind may be so formed as to live in a bituminous one.

It is on account of this bitumen that it hath had the name of Asphaltite Lake, it being reported to have thrown up great quantities of that drug, which was much in use among the Egyptians, and other nations, for embalming of dead bodies. Josephus affirms us, that in his days it rose in lumps as big as an ox without its head, and some even larger. But, whatever it may have formerly done, we are assured by Mr Maundrell and others, that it is now to be found but in small quantities along the shore, though in much greater near the mountains on both sides the lake. But the contrary is since affirmed by two or more late* travellers, the one of whom tells us, that it is observed to float on the surface of the water, and to come on the shore, after windy weather, where the Arabians gather it, and put it to all the uses that common pitch is used for; even in the compositions of some medicines: and another† tells us, he was there informed, that it was raised at certain times from the bottom, in large hemispheres, which, as soon as they touch the surface, and are acted upon by the external air, burst at once, with great noise and smoke, like the fulminans of the chemists, dispersing themselves about in a thousand pieces. From both these judicious authors we may conclude the reason of Mr Maundrell's mistake, both as to the lake's throwing it up only on certain seasons (that reverend gentleman might chance to be there at the wrong time); and likewise as to his not observing it about the shores, seeing the Arabs are there ready to gather it as soon as thrown up: all of them describe it as resembling our black pitch, so as not to be distinguished from it but by its sulphurous smoke and stench when set on fire; and it hath been commonly thought to be the same with that which our druggists sell under the name of bitumen Judaicum, or Jewish pitch, though we have reason to think that this last is fictitious, and that there is now none of the right asphaltum brought from Judea.

It hath, moreover, been confounded with a sort of blackish combustible stone thrown on the shore, and called by some Moses's stone, which, being held in the flame of a candle, will soon burn, and cast a smoke and intolerable stench; but with this extraordinary property, that though it loses much of its weight and colour, it becoming in a manner white, yet it diminishes nothing of its bulk. But these, Dr Pococke tells us, are found about two or three leagues from the shore. He concludes, however, from it, that a stratum of that stone under the lake is probably one part of the matter that feeds the subterraneous fire, and causes the bitumen to boil up out of it.