How far the pillar in the caves is like that mentioned in the Book of Genesis it is impossible to say, because the latter has been neither minutely described nor photographed. Josephus, the great historian of the Wars and Antiquities of the Jews, and who was not born until about 2,000 years after Lot's departure from Sodom, says he saw it. His words are: "When Lot went away with his two maiden daughters--for those who were betrothed to them were above the thoughts of going, and deemed that God's words were trifling--God then cast a thunderbolt upon the city, and set it on fire with its inhabitants.... But Lot's wife continually turning back to view the city as she went from it, and being too nicely inquisitive what would become of it, although God had forbidden her to do so, was changed into a pillar of salt." And, he adds, "for I have seen it, and it remains to this day." It is to be regretted that he did not describe the pillar itself. A century later Irenæus bore testimony to the existence of the pillar, and spoke of its lasting so long "with all its members entire." This would lead to the inference that the original pillar retained the shape of a female figure. If it did, then in this respect there is no similarity between the Pillar of Warning on the Dead Sea plain and the pillar in the Jenolan Caves. The latter is a pretty round column, about five feet four inches high, rounded off irregularly at the top, and built up in sections, which show separate growths, like divisions in the stem of a cabbage-tree palm, or the joints of a bamboo. It is probable, therefore, that there is not the slightest resemblance between the two pillars. Bishop Patrick thinks that some of the storm which overwhelmed the Cities of the Plain overtook Lot's wife, "and falling upon her as she stood staring about, and minded not her way or guide, suddenly wrapped her body in a sheet of nitro-sulphurous matter, which, congealing into a crust as hard as stone, made her appear, they say, as a pillar of salt, her body being candied in it."