=22. The exact location= of these cities has not yet been discovered. They were, with the other cities of the plain, situated very near the Dead Sea, and the traditions place them at the western part of the southern end, where there is a salt hill five miles long, called the hill of Sodom, _Jebel Usdum_. There are good reasons for supposing that when Abram and Lot stood overlooking the land from the heights near Bethel, Lot chose the region north of the Dead Sea, which was visible, in preference to the southern part, which was more than forty miles distant. But from the Scripture account, considered in view of the evident volcanic nature of this part of Palestine and the fearful earthquakes which have happened in the vicinity in recent times, there is reason to believe that some terrible convulsion not only buried the cities, but submerged the plain at the south end of the sea, and no other interpretation seems to suit the history, which definitely states that the plain and all that grew upon it were destroyed, the water system of the plain being all entirely changed. The submerged plain at the south, therefore, which is covered for the area of about fifty square miles with water only a few feet deep, has given occasion for the theory that the cities of the plain are to be sought beneath these waters, which are by some supposed to cover the vale of Siddim. =23. Hazezon-tamar is the same= as En-gedi, 2 Chron. 20:2. It is upon the west shore of the Dead Sea, twenty-three miles south of the mouth of the Jordan. Hobah, whither Abram pursued the kings, is two miles north of Damascus. =24. Abram was near Hebron=, twenty miles west of the Dead Sea, when the news reached him of the defeat of the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah and the capture of Lot. Hebron is almost equidistant from the north and south ends of the Dead Sea, at an elevation of nearly 3,000 feet above the Mediterranean, while the waters of the Dead Sea are 1,293 feet below those of the Mediterranean.