Between the basin of the Euphrates and Tigris and the Mediterranean rise the mountains of Syria, an elevated plateau which ascends gradually from the right bank of the Euphrates and descends steeply on the sea-coast. A peculiar depression, known as Hollow Syria,[477] divides this region in its entire length from north to south--from the Taurus to the N.E. point of the Red Sea, and separates the plateau into an eastern and a western half. The bed of the narrow valley reaches its greatest elevation in the neighbourhood of the city of Baalbec (Heliopolis). From this point the Orontes flows towards the north and irrigates the green gardens of Emesa and Hamath, till it turns westward and finds a way toward the sea at Antioch; the Leontes and the Jordan flow towards the south. Between steep walls of rock the Jordan hurries down the gorge, and passes in a rapid course through the lakes of Merom and Kinneroth (Gennesareth), which are formed by the streams from the mountains on either side. The deeper the bed of the valley the more valuable are the fruits growing in the tropic atmosphere. The country round Jericho, the city of palms, sheltered from the winds of the table-land and heated by the rays refracted from the walls of rock, produces grapes and figs for ten months in the year; its wealth in dates and balsam was rated high in antiquity.[478] The course of the Jordan ends in the Dead Sea, the surface of which is about 1,300 feet below the level of the Mediterranean. Out of Hollow Syria rises on the east like a wall of rock the plateau of Aram,[479] in naked, wild, and broken ridges, which, in Antilibanus, the highest point, reaches 9,000 feet. On the back of the mountains we find at first green pastures overshadowed by forests of oak, but further towards the east the heights become bald and desolate, until the land, as it sinks towards the Euphrates, gradually assumes the character of the deserts, which are broken only by the fruitful depressions of Damascus, Hieropolis (Membidsh), and Tadmor (Palmyra).