t, soon after
the invasion of Kudur-lagamar, the anger of God being kindled by the
wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah, He resolved to destroy the five cities
situated in the valley of Siddim. A cloud of burning brimstone broke
over them and consumed them; when the fumes and smoke, as "of a
furnace," had passed away, the very site of the towns had disappeared.**
Previous to their destruction, the lake into which the Jordan empties
itself had had but a restricted area: the subsidence of the southern
plain, which had been occupied by the impious cities, doubled the size
of the lake, and enlarged it to its present dimensions. The earthquake
which caused the Phoenicians to leave their ancestral home may have been
the result of this cataclysm, and the sea on whose shores they sojourned
would thus be our Dead Sea.

* They would thus have arrived at the shores of Lake Merom,
or at the shores either of the Dead Sea or of the Lake of
Gennesareth; the Arab traditions speak of an itinerary which
would have led the emigrants across the desert, but they
possess no historic value is so far as these early epochs
are concerned.

** _Gen._ xix. 24-29; the whole of this episode belongs to
the Jehovistic narrative.

One fact, however, appears to be certain in the midst of many
hypotheses, and that is that the Phoenicians had their origin in the
regions bordering on the Persian Gulf. It is useless to attempt, with
the inadequate materials as yet in our possession, to determine by what
route they reached the Syrian coast, though we may perhaps conjecture
the period of their arrival. Herodotus asserts that the Tyrians placed
the date of the foundation of their principal temple two thousand
three hundred years before the time of his visit, and the erection of a
sanctuary for their national deity would probably take place very soon
after their settlement at Tyre: this would bring their arrival there to
about the XXVIIIth century before our era. The Elamite and Babylonian
conquests would therefore have found the Phoenicians already established
in the country, and would have had appreciable effect upon them.

The question now arises whether the Beni-Israel belonged to the group of
tribes which included the Phoenicians, or whether they were of Chaldaean
race. Their national traditions leave no doubt upon that point. They are
regarded as belonging to an important race, which we find dispersed over
the coun