Note (18) — 40.—Of Jherusalem and of the Holy Sepulchre.

(18.) “Dead Sea, which is one hundred and fifty stadia wide.”—Josephus (Wars, etc., iv, 8, 3) wrote that the Dead Sea was 580 stadia in length, and 150 stadia wide. Seetzen (Reiseberichte in Monatliche Correspondenz, Berlin, 1854, xviii, 440), gives the width at 13-1/2 English miles, which Robinson reduces to 11-1/4 miles, at the same time observing that the water level rose from 10 feet to 15 feet; and that when he happened to be there in the month of May, the water had sufficiently risen to inundate, over the space of one mile, a salt lake on its southern shore. The indications of Josephus and of Schiltberger may have reference to the same season of the year.—Bruun.