The Jordan first traverses a small lake, which is almost dry in summer, and then flows into the lake of Gennesareth or Tiberias, also called the Sea of Galilee, and famous in Christian tradition. The shape of this lake is an irregular oval, twenty kilometres in length by about nine in breadth. The water is fresh and fit for drinking, but the volcanic nature of the soil is indicated by springs of hot water in the vicinity, and by the basaltic rocks that cover its shores. Its level is two hundred and thirty metres below that of the sea. This low level has been found constant throughout the whole valley of the Jordan, which, leaving the lake of Gennesareth, continues its course southwards, and, at a distance of twenty-five leagues from it, falls into the Dead Sea. The mouth is four hundred metres below the level of the Mediterranean. The Dead Sea, also called Lake Asphaltites, because of the bitumen which floats upon its surface, is a lake with no outlet, and loses by evaporation about the same amount of water that it receives from the Jordan and its other affluents. It is sixty-four kilometres in length, its breadth varies from eight to thirteen kilometres, its greatest depth is about four hundred metres. Its basin is the bottom of the great valley which extends from Mount Hermon to the Gulf of Akabah on the Red Sea. This basin is in all likelihood due to the giving way of a vast crater formed by the great volcanic eruption which swallowed up the cities of Pentapolis. Genesis has preserved the memory of this cataclysm, which it calls a rain of fire and brimstone. In the neighbourhood we find deposits of lava, pumice-stone, sulphur, and bitumen. The saltness and causticity of the water of the Dead Sea explain why no fish nor any sort of animal can live in it; it contains twenty-four to twenty-six and a quarter per cent. of saline matter, in place of the four per cent. of other seas. Its specific gravity is greater by a fifth than that of the water of the ocean, and it is consequently impossible to drown in it. The saline concretions met with in such regions as this may have given rise to the fable of Lot’s wife, who was changed into a pillar of salt.