Attractive as Egypt was to him and his party, it was still not to be his permanent home; for the divine admonitions had designated Canaan as the country for this purpose; and therefore, when the famine had passed, and grass for his flocks was to be had, he crossed again the wide intervening desert region; and then, having still advanced northwardly, stopped once more on the heights of Bethel, where he had formerly halted on his journey and had built an altar. And here once more he "called on the name of the Lord."

Lot was still with him, and had also increased in pastoral wealth; and here now, both his uncle and himself, even in these wide abundant pastures, were feeling the customary effects of prosperity and riches. Their herdsmen were having contentions and were bringing in complaints, which threatened to disturb the harmony among the chiefs themselves; and Abram came to the unwelcome conclusion that

it was to see that the weight was just. None of this money has been found among the antiquities of that country, but on their monuments are figures representing both the gold and silver currency, the latter being styled in the accompanying hieroglyphics "white gold.” Silver appears to have been chiefly in use for the purpose of ornament. Egypt had no coined money till it was introduced by the Persians after their conquest of that country; nor have any such pieces, of times previous to the Persian rule, been discovered in Phoenicia, although this might have been expected (if at any place) in a commercial country like the last. The first coined money (i. e. with an impression on it) known is that of the Lydian kings and of Egina, about the eighth century B. C. The first absolutely Jewish coin was in the time of Simon Maccabeus, B. C. 139; obverse, Shekel Israel; reverse, Jerusalem Kedoshah (the holy).

This notice respecting Abram is the first we have in the Bible of the use of the precious metals. That may signify bullion, but more probably it was the ring money or some other settled form of exchange. In Gen. xvii. 13 and xxiii. 16, xx. 16, the reference seems to be clearly to some known form; and in Gen. xxxvii. 25, 28, to one recognized from Gilead to Egypt. In Gen. xlii. 35, the expression is bundles of money; and in xliii. 21, it was said to be "in full weight," probably rings of silver which could be estimated separately or in the gross by weight. See "Madden's Hist. of Jewish Coinage."

he and his nephew must separate; for "the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together: for their substance was so great that they could not dwell together." He was very generous in his proposal to Lot, when it had become painfully evident that they must part. "Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdsmen and thy herdsmen: for we be brethren," was his conciliatory language. He then offered to his kinsman the choice of the whole country. If Lot should choose the right hand, he would go to the left; if the left hand, he would go to the right.

The spot where they stood commanded an extensive prospect, and especially down into a region that might very well attract the preference of Lot and his party, so recently from Egypt. For just below them was the valley of the Jordan, with a climate which through long subsequent ages was proverbial as Egyptian, and also a plain which was afterward, and doubtless then also, famous for its tropical palm trees, and a soil well watered and remarkable for its fertility. It was bringing Egypt, so pleasant in its associations, once more close to his side. Fatally for himself, Lot chose this place.

The whole valley of the Jordan and its lakes is a very singular one. It looks as if by some convulsion in the earth a long chasm had been made, commencing near the foot of Hebron, and deepening southwardly till the waters at the lake of Tiberias are six hundred and twenty-two feet below the level of the Mediterranean; whence again this chasm goes on deepening rapidly, till finally the surface of the Dead Sea is thirteen hundred and twelve feet below the Mediterranean level. This convulsion doubtless occurred long before Abram's time; but the rocks of that region show a volcanic origin; and volcanoes to this day heave and disturb the land.

The place where Abram and Lot were standing at Bethel is about twenty-eight hundred feet above the Mediterranean

level, and the plain of Jericho, only four miles distant, was about thirty-nine hundred feet below them. A wady or glen at their side led down to the plain, and opened on it at a spot where a fountain sufficient to turn mills still gushes from the earth. The whole plain is to this day watered to an unusual degree by large fountains. Its soil has always been famous for its fertility and the place remarkable for the tropical nature of its productions. Directly at the south of it is the Dead Sea, a body of water forty-six statute miles. long by nine and a half in its widest part, its greatest depth being thirteen hundred feet. Twenty-seven miles from its northern end, however, the sea is narrowed by a low, flat promontory extending from the mountains at its eastern side, so as to be here only from three to five miles wide, with a depth so greatly diminished that it can be forded at certain seasons of the year. On its western side, bare, rugged hills rise abruptly from the sea, and are the beginning of a district some twelve or fifteen miles in width, looking, says the traveller Maundrell, "As if the earth had suffered some great convulsion in which the very bowels had been turned outward." On the east, mountains rise to a height of two or three thousand feet, and are seamed by ravines down which streams descend, giving fertility to their sides. At the southern end of this sea commences the Wady Arabah, eight or ten miles wide, at first low and marshy, then higher, and so passing off southwardly, with high mountains on either side, to the gulf of Akabah, the eastern arm of the Red Sea. At the southwestern edge of the Dead Sea is a ridge of pure salt, four miles long by one hundred and fifty feet in height, and at the northern end of this ridge comes in, from the west, Wady Mahawat, the sides of which at the present day give intimations of the manner in which the great catastrophe to this region was produced soon after the separation between Abram and Lot. A recent traveller says, "There are exposed on the sides of the wady, and chiefly on

the south, large masses of bitumen mingled with gravel. These overlie a thin stratum of sulphur, which again overlies a thicker stratum of sand, so strongly impregnated with sulphur that it yields powerful fumes on being sprinkled over a hot coal. Many great blocks of bitumen have been washed down the gorge, and lie scattered over the plain below, along with huge boulders and other traces of tremendous floods. . . . . The layer of sulphurous sand is generally evenly distributed on the old limestone base, the sulphur evenly above it and the bitumen in variable masses. In every way it differs from the ordinary mode of deposit of these substances, as we have seen them elsewhere. Again, the bitumen, unlike that which we pick up on the shore, is strongly impregnated with sulphur, and yields an overpowering sulphurous odor; above all it is calcined, and bears the marks of having been subjected to extreme heat. In weight and appearance it differs from the bitumen on the shore, as coke does from ordinary coal."

The bitumen on the seashore above referred to is cast up from the sea after the earthquakes to which the place is subject, and sometimes comes in very large masses; it is doubtless the consolidated matter from bituminous springs below after their fluids have escaped into the sea. The ancients describe the quantity of this floating asphaltum as even greater than at the present time. The water of this sea is exceedingly nauseous and bitter :2 no living thing can exist in it. The specific gravity is 1.1823, so great that the human body cannot sink in it. Notwithstanding the large quantity of fresh water poured into it by the Jordan, its

1 Tristram's "Land of Israel."

2 An analysis by Prof. F. A. Genth of some brought home by Prof. Osborn gave

Chloride of Sodium...... 7.5839 | Bromide of Magnesium.........0.5341 Calcium ............ 2.8988 Sulphate of Lime.......... ....0.0901 Magnesium.......10.1636 | Carbonate of Lime... ..........0 0042 Potassium......... 1.0087

do

do

do

nauseous qualities remain the same, the evaporation being equal to the supply by the river.

Where is now this shoal part of the sea, nineteen miles in length, was formerly land, making, with the low promontory yet there, the vale of Siddim; and here were, in Abram's time, five cities, none of them, however, probably very large. The inhabitants were no doubt attracted to the place by the warmth of the climate, like that at Jericho, and by the facilities for irrigation afforded by the streams from the neighboring mountains on the east; for Robinson remarks, “Even at the present day more living streams flow into the Ghor [Depression] at the southern end of the sea from the wadys of the eastern mountains than are to be found so near together in all Palestine; and the tract, though now mostly desert, is still better watered through these streams and by many fountains than any other district through the whole country." The inhabitants in the extreme heat would find a pleasant retreat on the adjoining mountains, made so inviting by these streams, and which were also so well adapted to afford pasturage for their flocks. But this vale of Siddim, as the Scriptures inform us, was full of slime [literally, bitumen] pits,' and the soil, as we see, was full of sulphur mixed with bitumen; bitumen was also probably employed, as in Mugeyer, for cement in their houses; and the whole place had therefore a most inflammable character.

Abram and Lot separated on these heights at Bethel. Four hundred and thirty years afterward their descendants, having become two distinct nations, were to meet east of the Dead Sea, and those from Lot were to do the others a grievous wrong. At present the nephew descended, probably by the adjoining wady, Dûk, to the plain of Jericho, whence he passed on to the vale of Siddim, where he made his residence in one of the cities, pasturing his flocks on the sides. of the adjoining mountains.

1 Gen. xiv. 10.