In seeking for a satisfactory explanation of why this water is so salt, Johnson argues thus; “Sodom and Gomorrah once stood at the north end of this sea. From here Lot fled with his family when the cities were destroyed. On one of the surrounding hills Lot’s wife was standing, when she disobediently looked back and was immediately turned into a pillar of salt.” Johnson becomes more and more animated as he contemplates the subject and expresses his views. His face is radiant with gladness, and his soul is all aglow with emotion, as he closes with this sentence: “Now, Whittle, since Mrs. Lot was turned to a pillar of salt upon one of these hills, we may safely account for the present salty condition of the water simply by supposing that she has melted and run back into the sea.” This thought was born in Johnson’s brain, and he nurses it with all the love and passionate fondness that characterize the young mother as she tenderly caresses her new-born babe. It is therefore with sincere regret that I raise the golden hammer of truth to break the young child’s head, but the false theory must die. I say, “Johnson, come with me.” Going around on the east side, not far from the north end, of the Dead Sea, we come to a broad shelf of rock, probably 1,000 feet above the water. Arriving at the edge of this stone table, and pointing to a colossal statue of salt-rock standing on its centre, I say, “Johnson, your theory is not true. Mrs. Lot has not melted; for, behold, she still stands!” This famous pillar is a slender, isolated needle of salt-rock, thirty or thirty-five feet high. This, we are told, is _actually Lot’s wife_. And I readily see how a man with a diseased imagination could fancy this a woman; for, as Professor Palmer remarks, “It does really bear a curious resemblance to an Arab woman with a child upon her shoulders.” The rock lifts itself up solitary and alone, something like a giantess, wearing tattered garments and disheveled hair, while her furrowed face is slightly turned over her left shoulder, as though she were still looking back on the desolate plain where the ill-fated cities once stood.