Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 153, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 June 1914 — THE CROSSING OF THE RED SEA. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE CROSSING OF THE RED SEA.

(By G. FREDERICK WRIGHT, LL. D„ F. G. S. A., Geologist: Author of "The Ice Age fn North America,” "Man and the Glacial Period,” Etc.) ■ "I apeak as a man of the world to ! men of the world; and I say to you, Search the Scriptures."—John Quincy Adams.

In the biblical account of the crossing of the Red sea it is said that “the

Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all the night, and made the sea dry land and the waters were divided.” Again, in the poetical account which follows, the piling up of the waters is said to have been acc om - plished “with the blast of thy nostrils.” And when the waters returned to cover the Egyptians, it is said, “Thou

didst blow with thy wind.’’ This leads us to look for a place where the wind would accomplish these results. Such a place would exist between Suez and the Bitter lakes, if at that time the land was depressed sufficiently to allow a shallow arm of the gulf to connect the two bodies of water. That such a depression existed 3,000 years ago, is made probable by a great amount of geological evidence. Sea shells such as those now existing in the Red sea are found in great abundance in the vicinity of the pyramids and near Cairo at an elevation of 250 feet above the sea. Similar evidence of a recent general depression of the land in that region are found on the shores of Palestine and Syria and on the Island of Cyprus. In the region between the Gulf of Suez and the P’tter lakes various knobs • capped with conglomerate, protecting softer deposits beneath, indicate the eroding action of water over all that region at a considerably higher level than that of the present. All this shows that the land level in the region has for a long time been slowly rising. The highest point between Suez and the Bitter lakes is less than 30 feet above sea level, and has now been cut through for the Suez canal. If, therefore, at the time of the Exodus the land level was about 30 feet lower than now, a channel of water would have extended through, separating the children of Israel from the Asiatic shore. That such was the ease seems JikaJjr from the fact that there are

extensive deposits of Nile mud In the vicinity, while according to Dawson the sands at levels which the sea now fails to reach hold “recent marine shells in such a state of preservation that not many centuries may have elapsed since they were in the bottom of the sea” (Egypt and Syria, P- 67). A study of u map of the region shows that a strong east wind might easily lower the water level a few feet at this point, transforming the strait into an Isthmus, thus permitting the children of Israel to cross over on dry land, while upon the cessation of the wind, as the Egyptians were entering, the waters would return and overwhelm them. As to the effect of wind upon water levels, the reports of the United States officials upon the levels of Lake Erie show that while a strong west wind lowers the water at Toledo sometimes as much as seven and a half feet, it at the same time piles it up to an equal extent at Buffalo. But upon a change of the wind the conditions are reversed so that a variation of water level amounting to 15 feet is sometimes produced;