and she became a pillar of salt." (Gen. 19: 26.) We should have weighty authority on our side, were we to understand this passage metaphorically; as salt is figuratively used in Scripture as an emblem of incorruption, durability, etc. Hence a covenant of salt, Num. 18: 19, is a perpetual covenant, one that is never to be broken; and thus we may consider a "pillar of salt," equivalent to an everlasting monument against criminal curiosity and disobedience. (A. Clarke.) If we credit ancient writers, however, we must consider her as retaining her human shape, and proportion of parts, but changed into a mass of rock salt. Josephus says expressly that she was standing as a pillar of salt in his time, and that he had seen it!* St. Clement and Irenius also assert that she was remaining even in their time, as a pillar of salt. The ancient fathers have not only represented her standing on the plain in her complete human form, but also as possessing a continual miraculous energy, capable of reproducing and renovating any part which might be broken off. Thus Tertullian, in his poem, "De Sodoma," has the following fanciful passage: -et simul illic In fragilem mutatem salem, statit ipsa sepulchrum Munificos solito dispungere sanguine menses! (Tertulliani, Opera V. II. p. 731, Ed. Oberthur.) But it is very evident that Lot's wife perished, and that Lot supposed she had been changed into salt, and that this tradition was handed down to the time of Moses. M. Von Buch well observes that "the fossil salt would not so have struck Lot as to make him imagine that his wife had been turned into salt, if its existence between the strata of the mountains had been known previous to the catastrophe." The most natural mode of accounting for her death, is to suppose that she lingered behind, out of a very natural femi * “Εις ζηλην αλων μετεσαλεν ιςορηκα δ' αυτήν ετι γαρ και τον δια μενει. ." (Ant. Lib. I. c. xi. 3, 4.) nine curiosity, to see what was going to happen, (she "looked," or turned back,) and thus separated from her husband, she was overtaken by the volcanic eruption and perished on the very spot, where the bank of salt was afterwards found to have been thrown up. Should it be objected to this hypothesis of volcanic agency in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, that too few indications of lava are to be met with in the vicinity of the catastrophe, I may remark, that it has been proved, from the testimony of different travellers, that lava and other volcanic products are met with, in greater or less quantity in that region; particularly bitumen, sulphur, and salt. Geological works inform us, that volcanic rocks abound with bitumen, which is a combination of carbon and hydrogen, and according to the opinion of some geologists as much a mineral product as sulphur; though most believe it to be the result of vegetable fermentation, or decomposition, and distilled as it were from beds of coal beneath the surface of the earth.* The volcanic tufa in the vicinity of Claremont, in France, contains so much bitumen, that in warm days it oozes out, and forms streams resembling pitch; and this tufa is supposed to have been ejected some thousand years ago. Bitumen has also often been observed, oozing out of the the lava of Etna. Indeed, it is from the combustion of bitumen, that the black smoke chiefly arises during a volcanic eruption ("the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace," Gen. 19: 28). "Muriate of soda, * It is certainly true, that the art of the chemist and the manufacturer has been able, to a good degree, to imitate petroleum, by distilling bituminous coal, and, by the ignition of wood, as happens in preparing charcoal, in iron cylinders, for the manufacture of gun-powder; also in manufacturing pyroligneous acid, during which a substance closely resembling petroleum is produced, from the distillation of which naptha is produced. If we admit that petroleum is the result of vegetable fermentation, and decomposition, we suppose that the region of the Dead Sea belongs to the regular coal formation, and that underneath its waters, is a coal deposit.-Throughout Asia, the petroleum springs are associated with coal beds. In the State of New-York, however, although petroleum occurs, yet our state geologists believe that our rocks do not belong to the regular coal formation. or common salt," says Bakewell, " is often found in the craters of volcanoes." With respect to lava, it may be remarked, that it is not always ejected in volcanic eruptions. In Germany, for example, near the Rhine, are numerous extinct volcanoes, some having small cones and eminences; some with craters which are filled with water forming lakes, or meres; and many of them have ejected nothing but loose fragments of rock, with beds of scoria (or ashes) and sand.* Eight volcanoes of this description, have been described by a German geologist. He likewise enumerates eight others, which have ejected fragments of slag, and six only, which have thrown out lava. It is moreover to be recollected, that in ancient times, (how ancient it is difficult to determine,) the action of volcanic fire was far more extensive and intense than it is at present. Between Naples and Cumea, e. g. there are no less than 60 craters, some of them larger than Vesuvius. The city of Cumea, founded 1200 years before Christ, is built in the crater of an ancient volcano. In other parts of Italy there are undoubted vestiges of ancient volcanoes. The same is true of Sicily. Many islands in the Red Sea, and the Grecian Archipelago, are volcanic. There are remains of large craters in Spain and Portugal; and those in the middle and southern parts of France, cover many thousand square miles. If we consider trap and porphyry, among the volcanic rocks, as they are generally regarded at the present day, we shall find but few countries, but what have, at some period or other, been agitated and convulsed by the agency of internal fires. It is easy to show that the catastrophe, which overwhelmed the cities of the plain, was not a solitary occurrence of the kind, but that numerous instances are on record, of similar phenomena, even in comparatively modern times. In the year 1638 a volcano broke out in a mountain, in the island of Timore, one of the Moluccas, and during the eruption the mountain sank and entirely disappeared, and in its place is now a lake. "Many of the circular lakest in the south of Italy," says Bakewell," are supposed to have been formed by the sinking down of volcanoes." Governor Raffles, in his History of the Island of Java, gives an account of one of the largest volcanoes on the island, which was swal *Bakewell's Geology. † Ibid. p. 320. lowed up in the earth, after a short but severe combustion, in the year 1772. He states that near midnight between the 11th and 12th of August, there was observed about the mountain an uncommonly luminous cloud, by which it appeared to be completely enveloped. The inhabitants, residing on the acclivities of the mountain, becoming alarmed, fled; but before they could all reach a place of safety, the mountain began to give way, and the greatest part of it actually fell in, and disappeared in the earth. At the same time, a tremendous noise was heard, resembling the discharge of the heaviest cannon. It was estimated that an extent of ground, of the mountain itself and its immediate environs, 15 miles long and 6 broad, was, by this commotion, swallowed up in the earth. About 40 villages, and 2,957 inhabitants were destroyed.* This catastrophe would therefore hardly suffer by comparison, with that which overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. The account of the destruction of Euphemia in Calabria, in 1638, as given by Kircher, strongly reminds us of the Scripture history of the destruction of Sodom. “Here,” says he, "scenes of ruin every where appeared around me; but my attention was quickly turned from more remote to contiguous danger, by a deep rumbling sound,† which every moment grew louder. The place where we stood shook most dreadfully. After some time, the violent paroxysm ceasing, I stood up, and turning my eyes to look for Euphemia, saw only a frightful black cloud. We waited till it had passed away, when nothing but a dismal and putrid lake was to be seen, where the city once stood." Changes in the relative levels of the land, are common occurrences in volcanic countries. On the western shores of the Caspian, there is a tract called the Field of Fire, which emits inflammable gas, and abounds with springs of naptha and petroleum. Violent subterranean commotions have been often experienced through this region, and according to Engelhardt and Parrot, the bottom of the sea has, in modern times, varied in form, while the coast of the Isle of Idak, which was formerly very high land, has now become quite low. The island of Santa Maria, near the coast of * Raffles' History of Java. Josephus states that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by thunder. Chili, which is seven miles long and two broad, was raised in the course of a few days about ten feet. On the 19th of November, 1822, the coast of Chili was visited by an earthquake, the shock being felt throughout a space of about 1200 miles in length. On examination the following morning, it was found that the whole line of coast for a distance of 100 miles, embracing 100,000 square miles, was raised from four to seven feet above its former level. After an earthquake in India in 1819, a large portion of the Delta of the Indus, where previously the water was only a foot deep at ebb tide, was submerged to the depth of from ten to eighteen feet at low water.* The fort and village of Sindue, on the eastern arm of the Indus, were at the same time overflowed, so that the tops of the houses were only to be seen above the water. Immediately after the shock, it was found that a tract of country fifty miles long and sixteen broad, running parallel to the subsided portion, had been elevated about ten feet.† Even in our own country, these changes of level are not entirely unknown. In 1812 several severe shocks of an earthquake were experienced in the southern States. The valley of the Mississippi, from the village of New Madrid to the mouth of the Ohio, in one direction, and to the St. Francis in another, was convulsed to such a degree as to create lakes and islands. Mr. Flint, Mr. Nuttall the naturalist, and others, tell us that a tract of many miles in extent, near the Little Prairie, became covered with water three or four feet deep; and when the water disappeared a stratum of sand was left in its place. Large lakes of twenty miles in extent were formed in an hour, and others were drained. The grave-yard at New Madrid was precipitated into the river, and the ground whereon the town is built, and the river bank for fifteen miles above, sank eight feet below their former level. At one period the ground near New Madrid swelled up, so as to arrest the Mississippi in its course, and to cause a temporary reflux of its waves. Mr. Lyell sums up the principal changes effected by the earthquakes of the last thirty years thus: "New rocks have risen from the waters; * Edinburgh Phil. Journal, Vol. IV. p. 106. & Nuttall's Travels in Arkansas. |