People's Pilot, Volume 2, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 December 1892 — The Dead Sea. [ARTICLE]

The Dead Sea.

One of the most interesting lakes or inland seas in the world is the famous Dead sea, of Palestine. It has no visible outlet, but is subject to enormous evaporation, a fact which accounts for the yearly diminishment of its level, even though it is constantly fed by several good-sized streams. Some claim that it is mere fancy that has clothed the Dead sea in perpetual gloom, but this can hardly be the case. It undoubtedly has the most desolate shores of any body of water in the world. For miles and miles no green thing grows, there being only driftwood and black stones to break the awful monotony of the scene. The dark, sluggish waters, which are always overhung with a thick mist, break in slow, sepulchral tones upon the beach, and it almost seems as if the smoke of the fires that consumed the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are still ascending through the thick, greasy-looking waves to heaven. The waters of the Dead sea do not go dancing and sparkling along as waves of water usually do, but move like heavy billows of oil —a fact which is said to be due to the immense quantities of salt and bitumen held in suspension. Fish cannot live in stick a solution, but the story that birds cannot fly over it is an absurdity that has often been disproved.—Philadelphia Press.