y that at low water they glimpse fragments of buildings
and pillars rising out of the bottom of the lake. But this is only a
fancy. Yet beneath the waters of the Dead Sea are thought to lie the
Cities of the Plain. The northern part of the lake is very deep, the
southern part very shallow. The bottom consists of two separate plains,
one elevated, the other depressed. The latter is by some held to be the
original bottom of the lake, and the former to have been caused by the
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. But this also is only a fancy. The
bitumen, which is found in such large quantities in and near the lake,
is a symptom and remnant of the volcanic nature of the region. Several
lines of earthquake are traced from it in a north-eastern direction;
and it is conjectured that the three lakes, Merom, Tiberias, and
Asphaltites, together with the river Jordan, are the remaining traces of
the huge gulf once filled by the Dead Sea before the land was lifted by
a geological catastrophe. Volcanic action has caused all the remarkable
phenomena of the district, which were of immemorial antiquity thousands
of years ago; and the story of the Cities of the Plain is only one of
the legends which ancient peoples associated with every striking aspect
of nature.

Let us recur to Lot. His sons, his married daughters, and their
husbands, perished in the deluge of brimstone and fire. He and his two
unmarried daughters fled to Zoar as fast as their legs could carry
them. But his wife was less fortunate. She ran behind Lot, and with the
natural curiosity of her sex she looked back on the doomed city. For
this violation of the angels' orders she was turned into "a pillar of
salt." Some commentators try to blink this unpleasant fact by artful
translations; such as "she fell into a salt-brook," or "she was covered
with a salt crust," or she was "_like_ a pillar of salt." Josephus
pretended to have seen this old woman of salt, but others have been less
lucky, although many travellers and pilgrims have searched for it as for
a sacred relic. But let us not despair. Lot's wife may yet be discovered
and exhibited in the British Museum.

What became of Lot and his daughters? Fearing to dwell in Zoar, they
left it and "dwelt in a cave." The damsels, who had heard their father
offer them to the promiscuous embrace of a lustful crowd, could not
be expected to be very scrupulous in their conduct. They were alone,
without husbands to make them mothers, a