The Jordan at Dan
From the western base of Tell El-Kady bursts forth one of the largest fountains in Syria, and what is said to be the largest single fountain in the world. Its waters form a miniature lake, and then dashing through an oleander thicket and across the plain southward a deep, rapid river. This is called the “lower springs of Jordan.”
On the eastern side of the mound is a smaller fountain, which springs up within the tell and flows off through a break in the rim on the southwest, and foaming down the bank joins its sister. This is the principal source of the Jordan. “Just at this break stands a noble oak and a terebinth, whose branches are hung with votive offerings of all sorts of rubbish, as Israel of old set up their altars under the great trees and in the groves of high places”
The fountain springing from the western side of the mound is supposed to be where the drainage of the southern side of Hermon, pent up between a hard and a soft stratum, seems to have found a collective exit. The waters of the fountains soon unite and wind down the rich plain, both fountain and stream bearing the name El-Seddon, possibly some Arab corruption of Dan.
The united waters flow on through the plain to the lake, some six miles distant. Such is the principal fountain and such is the gradual formation of the River Jordan. Near the place where we stood in taking this picture are several Moslem graves. The Phœnicians once owned this site, and their city was called Laish. A band of six hundred Danites seized it, and it was then called Dan. “From Dan to Beersheba” defined the limits of Palestine.
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