From these observations we infer the gradual desiccation of the Jordan Valley; the Beisân Lake and the Jericho end of the Dead Sea having disappeared. Thus the present lake may be compared to one of the little pools on its own banks, left by the waves in the hollow of a rock, and gradually evaporating, surrounded by a crust of dry white salt. Into its thick oily waters--more than one-fourth part solid salt--the winter rains, and the streams from the salt springs, bring down all the chlorides which were once spread over the larger basin of the former great lake, and which are now accumulating in the smaller area, so that the sea seems to be almost in process of evaporating into a salt-marsh. There is, however, a curious indication still to be noticed. Hitherto evaporation has been on the increase. Is this still the case? The fords near the Lisân, which used to be passable by donkeys, are said now to be much deeper than formerly, and Sheikh Jemîl, the most intelligent of the Arabs near Jericho, told me that in his father’s days the sea did not generally reach farther inland than the Rujm el Bahr, whereas now the connecting causeway is always under water. This represents a rise of some ten feet in the water-level. In fact, according to this statement, the sea has now more water in it than it used to have half a century ago. If the theory of desiccation be correct, the idea that the Dead Sea was first formed at the time when the Cities of the Plain were overthrown is a fallacy. Geologists hold that the lake had reached its present condition before man was created, and thus the vale of Siddim is, no doubt, still represented by the district of the Sidds round the northern shores of the sea; for the four successive Dead Seas, which we have traced above, had all dried up before the days of Abraham. Turning from the question of the probable formation of the valley, we may next notice the most remarkable of its antiquities, namely, the Tellûl or Tells there found. The word Tell (meaning a “heap”) is used for many different things; for a conical mountain, for a little sand-hillock, for an artificial mound, or for a heap of ruins. The Jordan Valley has Tells of all these kinds in it, but the class of artificial mounds is the one more peculiarly interesting. Of these there are seven at Jericho, twenty-four at Beisân, several others between, and others again east of Jordan. They have been described as ruined sites of cities or fortresses, commanding the passes; the following peculiarities seem to be invariably recognisable. The Tell is a mound with steep slopes, from two or three to twenty or thirty feet high; a large Tell is often surrounded by smaller ones irregularly scattered; they are of no particular shape, and they show no signs of stone masonry, being outwardly earthen mounds, whilst inwardly, Captain Warren’s excavations proved them in some cases to consist of sun-dried bricks.