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The Dead Sea

The Dead Sea


‎The Arabs call this Bahr Lut, the Sea of Lot. It is the most remarkable inland sea in the world. It is situated in the lowest part of the valley which extends from the base of Hermon to the Gulf of Akabah. The Hebrews call it the Salt Sea. The Greeks at an early period called it the Dead Sea. It is forty-seven miles in length and its greatest width is nine and a half miles. Its mean depth is 1080 feet, its level below the level of the Mediterranean is 1293 feet. The water contains from twenty-four to twenty-six per cent of solid substances, seven per cent of which is chloride of sodium (common salt). The salt of the Dead Sea has from the earliest times been collected and brought to the Jerusalem markets and is considered particularly strong. To the Government alone belongs all the salt and bitumen brought into and sold in Syria. During the last of April, when the writer and the artist were here, the weather was so hot that it was necessary for us to leave our hotel in Jericho in time to ride to the sea and to the Jordan and back again by ten o’clock in the morning. Dr. H. M. Field writes: “My first impression of the Dead Sea was one of surprise at its beauty. Its very name seemed to be equivalent to the sea of death. Instead of the black waters of death we looked down upon a deep blue expanse that had all the beauty of the Scotch or Swiss lakes.” Its one unique feature is its extreme depression on the earth’s surface, for it is the lowest body of water on the earth.


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