LYNCH'S EXPEDITION TO THE DEAD SEA.
During the bath Ali had spread out the mid-day lunch, and it was eaten with a hearty relish. The Doctor embraced the opportunity to say it was not until 1837 that anybody discovered the Dead Sea to be lower than the Mediterranean. Some English surveyors ascertained it, and the matter attracted so much attention that ten years later an American expedition was sent to survey the Jordan and the Dead Sea; it was commanded by Lieutenant Lynch, of the United States Navy, and was thoroughly equipped for its work.
LYNCH'S LEVELLING PARTY.
"Lieutenant Lynch," said the Doctor, "landed at the Bay of Acre in March, 1848, carried his boats on trucks drawn by camels over the mountains of Lebanon, and launched them in the Lake of Gennesaret. From this lake the party descended the Jordan to the Dead Sea, spent three weeks in a survey of that body of water, and then 'levelled' the route to the Mediterranean, in order to settle the question of the relative heights. They found that no fish or living thing belongs to the water of the Dead Sea, and all fish from the Mediterranean or the ocean die very soon after being placed in it. Ducks swim in the water without injury, but it is fatal to them to be plunged beneath it. As it contains nothing for them to eat, they have no inducement to dive.