with these few exceptions (if they are exceptions), the Dead Sea water
must be pronounced to be the heaviest and saltest water known to us.
More than one fourth of its weight is solid matter held in solution. Of
this solid matter nearly one third is common salt, which is more than
twice as much as is contained in the waters of the ocean.

Of the fresh-water lakes the largest and most important is the Sea of
Tiberias. This sheet of water is of an oval shape, with an axis, like
that of the Dead Sea, very nearly due north and south. Its greatest
length is about thirteen and its greatest width about six miles. Its
extreme depth, so far as has been ascertained, is 27 fathoms, or 165
feet. The Jordan flows into its upper end turbid and muddy, and issues
forth at its southern extremity clear and pellucid. It receives also the
waters of a considerable number of small streams and springs, some of
which are warm and brackish; yet its own water is always sweet, cool,
and transparent, and, having everywhere a shelving pebbly beach, has
a bright sparkling appearance. The banks are lofty, and in general
destitute of verdure. What exactly is the amount of depression below the
level of the Mediterranean remains still, to some extent, uncertain; but
it is probably not much less than 700 feet. Now, as formerly, the lake
produces an abundance of fish, which are pronounced, by those who have
partaken of them, to be "delicious."

Nine miles above the Sea of Tiberias, on the course of the same stream,
is the far smaller basin known now as the Bahr-el Huleh, and anciently
(perhaps) as Merom. This is a mountain tarn, varying in size as the
season is wet or dry, but never apparently more than about seven miles
long, by five or six broad. It is situated at the lower extremity of
the plain called Huleh, and is almost entirely surrounded by flat marshy
ground, thickly set with reeds and canes, which make the lake itself