The northern tribune. [volume] (Bath, Me.) 1847-1855, 1847-12-27
Scientific Expedition to the Dead Sea.


Navy, who is TO command the proposed
expedition to the Dead Sea, thus writes to the
New York Herald:
For upwards of four thousand years the
Dead Sea has laid in its deep and wondrous
chasm, whitening record of the visitation
OF Gods wrath upon his sinful creatures
Itself once fertile vale, teening with popu-
lation and redundant with the products of a
tayorite cline, it now lies inert and sluggish,
mass of dark and bitter waters, with no
living thing upon its shore, or above or beneath
It's surface. Receiving, at one extreme, the
mighty volume Of swift and unfailing river,
and the numerous torrents that plunge into 1t
through the clefts in its sides, it slowly rises
and falls in its own solitary bed, with no
visible outlet for its tributary waters. Its
lofty and fretted sides riven by earthquakes
here blanched by rain, their blackened by
the tempest-rise perpendicularly fifteen
hundred feet one side, and two thousand feet
on the other, while from the summit the awe.
struck behoder beholds floating upon its
surface huge masses of bitumen, thrown up
from its mysterious vortex. Mount Lebanon
is 5000 feet above the Mediterranean. and
10000 above the Dead Sea, which is little
more than one hundred miles distant from it,
The :" Corral y in the island of Madeira is
wonderful for it is the bed of a crater nearly
level with the ocean; but here is a sea, 40
miles distant from another sea, and upwards
of 1900 feet below it. The unhappp Costigan
the only man who has undertaken to circum-
navigate this Sea, and who persisted in the
attempt, could, in one place, find no bottom,
and 1t was indicated by incessant bubbles and
an agitated surface. Whether or not this be
the crater of submerged volcano, forming a
subterraneous acqueduct with the ocean, who
can tell? This unfathomable spot, whether
or not through an extinct volcano, in con-
nex:on with the depression of surface and the
height of a contiguous mountain, forms the
most extraordinary fault or assure in the
known world.
One great object of investigation will be to
ascertain whether this sea and its shores are
of volcanic or non-volcanic oIigin, and to
refute the position of inhdel philosophers
with regard to its formation. The calculation
of this subject is desideratum to science,
and would he most gratifying to the whole
Christian world. 1t is mystery which has
remained impenetrable since the awful moment
when the waves of that wondrous sea rose
above the value of Siddim. The confgura-
ton of one half of its shores, and its very ex-
tent, are unknown. Its waters, of a petrify
ing quality, and limpid as a mountain stream,
doubtless hold within their bosom, and hold
ing, will reveal those ruins upon the non-ex-
istence of which the belle yer stakes his incre-
dulity.
Strasbo, Diodorus, Pliny and Josephus, among
the ancientS-and Maundrell, Pococko, Able
MARITIME. Chautebrand, La MARITIME, Stephens
and Robinson, among the moderns, all differ
as to the extent and many of the peculiarities
of this sea. Considerable streams are said to
enter into it, the very names of which are I'M
known. Some have heard the gambolings of
fish upon its surface, while others deny that
any animated thing whatever can exist with
i'll its dense and bitter waters. Fruits, luscious
to the eye, but of nauseous taste, and crumb-
ling in its grasp, are said to be found upon its
shores. Many travellers deny the existence of
all vegetation, and Chautebriand asserts that
he found branches of the tamarind tree strewn
upon the beach, Its southern coast is said to
consist of masses of solid salt; while, as far
as the eye can reach from its northern extreme,
it beholds only the washed and barren hills of
J udea ON the one side, and those of Arabia
Petrea on the other. All is vague, uncertain
and mysterious.
Are the questions answered? Or shall a
a small pecuinary consideration withhold Il
such as tkis, from such an undertake
ing?
| admit that it is not summers excursion,
and that British officers are said to have twice
failed in a like attempt. Should that circum-
stance deter US! l venture to say, that with
in the broad periphery of this land, which
graded between oceans, stretches from the
frigid zone to the tropics, there is not one ma
tive born or true-heartod adopted citizen who
will answer in the affirmative. We owe some
thing to the scientific and the Christian world,
and while extending the blessings of civil
liberty in the south and west, may well afford
to foster science and strengthen the bulwarks
Of Christianity in the east.
w. T. LYNCH, U. S. n.
My dear Polly, I am surprised at syour
taste in wearing another woman hair on your