Connecticut western news., 1890-10-29

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 the ocean having four per cent. of salt | and this lake twenty-six and quarter | per cent
 Lake Sir-i-kol of India is the highest | lake in the world. This lake, on the | banks of which we kneel, is the lowest ] lake. It empties into no sea, among
 other things for the simple reason that
 water cannot run up hill. It swallows | up the River Jordan and makes no re- sponse of thanks, and never reports | what it does with the twenty million
 cubic feet of water annually received | from that sacred river. It takes the
 tree branches and logs foated into it
 by the Jordan and pitches them on l the banks of bitumen to decay there. WHERE HERoD CAME TO BATTLE. The hot springs near it's banks by the name of Callirhoe, where King Herod l came to bathe off his illnesses, no soon- CT pour into this sea than they are poi soned. Not a fish scale swims it. Not | an insect walks it. It hates life, and if you attempt to swim there it lifts l you by an unnatural buoyancy to the
 surface, as much as to say, "We want ! no life here, but death is our prefer ence; death" Those who attempt to wade into this lake and submerge themselves come out almost maddened, ! as with the sting of a hundred wasps l and hornets, and with lips and eyelids I swollen with the strange ablution. The l sparkle of it's waters is not like the 1 sparkle of beauty on other lakes, but metallic luster like unto the flash of a sword that would thrust you.
 The gazelles and the ibexes that live on the hills beside it, and the cranes | and wild ducks that fly across-for, contrary to the old belief, birds do safely wing their way over it-and the | Arab horses you have been riding, I though thirsty enough, will not drink l out of this dreadful mixture. A mist hovers over parts of it almost continu- ally, which. though natural evapora- tion, seems like wing of doom spread ] over liquid desolation. It is the rins- ings of abomination. It is an aqueous monster coiled among the hills or creep ing with nipples and stenchful with | nauseatlng malodors.
 l In these regions once stood four great l cities of Assyria: Sodom, Gomorrah, l Adma and Zeboim The Bible says l they were destroyed by tempest of 1 fire and birthstone after these cities
 had filled up of wickedness. No, l that'fs absurd" cries some one ''It is
 evident that this was region of salt
 and birthstone and pitch long before that" And so it was. The Bible says it was a region of sulphur long before the great catastrophe. ''Well, now" l says some one, wanting to raise quar- ! rel between science and Revelation, "you have no right to say the cities of the plain were destroyed by tempest | of fire and sulphur and birthstone, be- cause this region had these character | istics long before these cities were de- ! stroyed." Volcanic action, is my re- ! ply. These cities had been built out
 of very combustible materials The
 mortar was of bitumen easily ignited,
 and the walls dripped with pitch most
 inflammable., They sat, I think, on a
 ridge of hills. They stood high up and
 conspicuous, radiant in their sins, os-
 tentatious in their debaucheries, four
 hells on earth One day there was rumbling in the
 earth, and quaking What's that2"
 cry the affrighted inhabitants. What's
 that?" The foundations of the earth
 were giving way. A volcano, whose
 fires had been burning for ages at
 Gods command burst forth, easily set
 ting everything afame, and first lifting
 these cities high in air, and then dash ! ing them down in chasms fathomless
 The fires of that eruption intershot the
 dense smoke, and rolled unto the heav-
 ems, only to descend again. And all
 the confguration of that country was
 changed, and where there was hill
 there came a valley, and where there
 had been the pomp of uncleanness 1 came widespread desolation. The red
 hot spade of volcanic action had shov-
 eled under the cities of the plain. Be- fore the catastrophe the cities stood
 on the top of the salt and sulphur.
 After the catastrophe they were under
 the salt and sulphur Science right
 Revelation right. ''He toucheth the
 hills and they smoke"
 GODS BOOK AND GEOLOGY AGREE. ! No science ever frightened believers in Revelation so much as geology. They feared that the strata of the
 earth would contradict the Scriptures,
 and then Moses must go under. But
 as in the Dead sea instance so in all
 cases Gods writing on the earth and Gods writing in the Bible are harmo- nious. The shelves of rock correspond with the shelves of the American Bible society. Science digs into the earth and finds deep down the remains of
 plants, and so the Bible announces plants first Science digs down and
 says, Marine animals next" and the Bible says, Marine animals next. Science digs down and says, 'Land ami malls next" and the Bible responds,
 Hand animals next" '"Then comes man!" says science. 'Then comes
 man!" responds the Bible. Science digs 1 into the regions about the Dead sea.
 and finds results of fire and masses O
 birthstone, and announces wonderful
 geological formation. "Oh, yes," say
 the Bible; "Moses wrote thousands O
 years ago, The Lord rained upol
 Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimston
 and fire from the Lord out of heaven,
 and David wrote, He toucheth tn
 hills and they smoke.'"
 So I guess we will hold on to ou Bibles little longer A gentleman il the ante-room of the White House, a