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any dispute--the group of myths and legends which grew upon the shore of the Dead Sea, and especially that one which grew up to account for the successive salt columns washed out by the rains at its southwestern extremity. The Dead Sea is about fifty miles in length and ten miles in width; it lies in a very deep fissure extending north and south, and its surface is about thirteen hundred feet below that of the Mediterranean. It has, therefore, no outlet, and is the receptacle for the waters of the whole system to which it belongs, including those collected by the Sea of Galilee and brought down thence by the river Jordan. It certainly--or at least the larger part of it--ranks geologically among the oldest lakes on earth. In a broad sense the region is volcanic: On its shore are evidences of volcanic action, which must from the earliest period have aroused wonder and fear, and stimulated the myth-making tendency to account for them. On the eastern side are impressive mountain masses which have been thrown up from old volcanic vents; mineral and hot springs abound, some of them spreading sulphurous odours; earthquakes have been frequent, and from time to time these have cast up masses of bitumen; concretions of sulphur and large formations of salt constantly appear. The water which comes from the springs or oozes through the salt layers upon its shores constantly brings in various salts in solution, and, being rapidly evaporated under the hot sun and dry wind, there has been left, in the bed of the lake, a strong brine heavily charged with the usual chlorides and bromides--a sort of bitter "mother liquor" This fluid has become so dense as to have a remarkable power of supporting the human body; it is of an acrid and nauseating bitterness; and by