Sodom and Gomorrah are described as the cities of the plain, and this plain is spoken of as the plain of Jordan. And yet the place where the cities are supposed to have stood, is near the southern end of the Dead Sea, while the Jordan empties into the northern end of it. If, therefore, the plain on which the cities stood was the plain of the Jordan, in the time of Lot, it would seem that the sea itself could not have existed then, but that the river must have continued its flow, beyond the point which now forms the southern termination of the sea. The sea as at present existing, is bounded on both sides by ranges of lofty and precipitous mountains, which lie parallel to each other, and extend north and south for several hundred miles. The space which lies between these ranges, forms a long and narrow ravine, very deeply depressed below the ordinary level of the earth's surface, as if it were an enormous crevasse, with the bed of it filled up to a certain level, in some places with water and in others with alluvial soil, either fertile or barren according to the geological structure of the different sections of it. This remarkable ravine divides itself naturally into five sections. The first, reckoning from north to south, contains the sources of the Jordan, and the lakes Merom and Tiberias. The second is the valley of the Jordan. Here the bottom of the ravine consists of a long and narrow plain of fertile land, with the river meandering through it. The third section is the bed of the Dead Sea. The waters here fill the whole breadth of the valley so completely, that in many places it is impossible to pass along the shore between the mountains and the sea. The water is deepest near the northern part of the sea, and grows more and more shallow toward the southern part, until at length the land rises above the level of the surface of the water, and then the bottom of the ravine presents again a plain of land, instead of a sheet of water. This is the fourth section. It extends, perhaps, a hundred miles, rising gradually all the way, and forming in summer the bed of a small stream which flows northward to the Dead Sea. This part of the great fissure is called the valley of Arabah.[2] At length the level of the bottom of the valley reaches its highest point, and the land descends again to the south, forming the fifth or southern-most section of the vast crevasse. The waters of the Red sea flow up some hundred miles into this section, forming the eastern one of the two forks into which that sea divides itself, at its northernmost extremity. [2] Wadi Arabah.