DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14562#0088
45
useful knowledge as well as authentic history and the eternal
rules of the science of life, the comparison of the existing hy-
dromasonic ordinate with the measures of the one recorded in
the Book of Joshua, will enahle us to determine how much, in
a given historical period, " mountains have heen raised or de-
pressed," and, the information obtained on the relations of the
present state of things with a past state becoming a good
foundation of some reasonable estimate of their future, we
should possess, in the language of old, " three parts of the
philosophy of the whole world."
The geological season ruling in Judsea is the same as that
Avhich is affecting the lower Nile valley, and which is the
principal cause of the salubrity of its climate and the fruitful-
ness of its artificially regulated soil of river deposits. But
Sarapidan observatories for geological motions, like the one
at present subsisting on the banks of the Nile, no longer exist
on the seabord of Judsea, and we consequently possess no ac-
counts of the motions that country has been exposed to as we
do of those in Egypt, where they are daily watched and noted
in books. They have been kept up in Egypt, because the
entire valley would become uninhabitable if human foresight
and prudence were to cease to regulate the work done by the
river, so as to counteract the evils attending volcanic pertur-
bations. But Palestine and Syria being a rainy country, the
same necessity for those observations did not exist, excepting
in those parts where the soil was condemned to drought, but
which the increasing wealth of the people reclaimed, and where
vast cities were formed for commercial purposes.
In a.d. 1855, Mr. Poole ascertained the altitude of the
aqueduct of Urtas and the bottom of Hezekiah's pool above
a certain Mediterranean level at Jaffa, and the level of the
Lake Asphaltites below the same Mediterranean level, with
the " aneroi'de metallique," in the last decade of October. He
observed a line of drift wood on the beach at the northern ex-
tremity of the lake, ranging 4 feet above the lake-level, and
indicating that the lake rose in that part of it 4 feet. About
the same period, an American party of scientific gentlemen
observed the difference in level between the Mediterranean
useful knowledge as well as authentic history and the eternal
rules of the science of life, the comparison of the existing hy-
dromasonic ordinate with the measures of the one recorded in
the Book of Joshua, will enahle us to determine how much, in
a given historical period, " mountains have heen raised or de-
pressed," and, the information obtained on the relations of the
present state of things with a past state becoming a good
foundation of some reasonable estimate of their future, we
should possess, in the language of old, " three parts of the
philosophy of the whole world."
The geological season ruling in Judsea is the same as that
Avhich is affecting the lower Nile valley, and which is the
principal cause of the salubrity of its climate and the fruitful-
ness of its artificially regulated soil of river deposits. But
Sarapidan observatories for geological motions, like the one
at present subsisting on the banks of the Nile, no longer exist
on the seabord of Judsea, and we consequently possess no ac-
counts of the motions that country has been exposed to as we
do of those in Egypt, where they are daily watched and noted
in books. They have been kept up in Egypt, because the
entire valley would become uninhabitable if human foresight
and prudence were to cease to regulate the work done by the
river, so as to counteract the evils attending volcanic pertur-
bations. But Palestine and Syria being a rainy country, the
same necessity for those observations did not exist, excepting
in those parts where the soil was condemned to drought, but
which the increasing wealth of the people reclaimed, and where
vast cities were formed for commercial purposes.
In a.d. 1855, Mr. Poole ascertained the altitude of the
aqueduct of Urtas and the bottom of Hezekiah's pool above
a certain Mediterranean level at Jaffa, and the level of the
Lake Asphaltites below the same Mediterranean level, with
the " aneroi'de metallique," in the last decade of October. He
observed a line of drift wood on the beach at the northern ex-
tremity of the lake, ranging 4 feet above the lake-level, and
indicating that the lake rose in that part of it 4 feet. About
the same period, an American party of scientific gentlemen
observed the difference in level between the Mediterranean