_Sodom_ alone, as Conder goes on to say, remains without a suggestion, and he finds no trace of it west of the Jordan. He notes, however, that the word Siddim is apparently the same with the Arabic _Sidd_, which is used in a peculiar sense by the Arabs of the Jordan Valley as meaning “cliffs” or banks of marl, such as exist along the southern edge of the plains of Jericho, the ordinary meaning being “dam” or obstruction. Thus the Vale of Siddim might well, so far as its name is concerned, have been situated in the vicinity of the northern shores of the Dead Sea. Dr Selah Merrill, in his “East of the Jordan,” also discusses the site of the Cities of the Plain. He says:--“Since Zoar was one of them, a hint as to their situation may be derived from Gen. xiii. 10, where Lot and Abraham are represented as standing on a hill near Bethel, and looking down the Jordan Valley towards the Dead Sea. As this verse is rendered in our English Bible, the meaning is not clear; but it will become so when all the middle portion of the verse is read as a parenthesis, as follows: ‘And Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the Plain of Jordan (that it was well watered everywhere, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt), until thou comest to Zoar.’ The last clause qualifies the first. Lot saw all the Plain of Jordan as far as Zoar, or ‘until you come to Zoar.’ Zoar was both the limit of the plain and the limit of vision in that direction, so far as the land was concerned.” Dr Merrill then shows that nothing could have been distinguished at the southern end of the Dead Sea; and quotes early writers to show that Zoar existed near the northern end.