APPLES OF SODOM.

Otago Witness, Issue 2331, 3 November 1898, Page 61

APPLES OF SODOM.

By a Banker.

Sunk more than 1300 ft below the level of the ocean, and nearly sarrcunded by steep mountain heights, lies the most remarkable sheet of water existing throughout the world, an inland sea, aptly termed the Dead Sea. But the term water is scarcely applicable to this extraordinary lake, for it contains so large a. proportion of solid mineral matter, a. proportion placed by one estimate at no less than 42£lb in each 1001b weight of water, that at the end of the dry season, when evaporation) has been more copious and the inflow from the Jordan has been diminished, the consistency, of the liquid might almost be described as only that of a semi-fluid. In this state a small pail containing only a cubic foot of it may weigh! 101b or 12lb more than a pail of ordinary water, and the traveller who incautiously attempts to taste it finds that the acrid, pugenfc fluid has burnt his mouth like vitriol. The specific gravity of the liquid being sex high, objects which would sink in ordinary water float upon the surface, and it is related by Josephiw that Vespasian desiring to geff rid of a number of prisoners caused them ta be bound and thrown into the lake, finding; then to his surprise that they floated on tha surface like so many corks. An ordinary boati would not sink below the keel. The general aspect of this extraordinary basin is beyond expression drear and dismal. The leaden, sullen surface of the noxious fluid?, too heavy and sluggish to be agitated, even into, ripples, by any ordinary breeze, hanga inertly, on the barren sterile desert which forms the shore, a lifeless, desolate waste, gloomy and dolorous, oppressing the traveller with a sense of cheerless dejection and doleful melancholy. And this overwhelming depression becomes, oven more intensified as he reflects that tha dense waters are but the aqueous shroud of air* that remains of the two most revoltingly vila and wicked cities which have in all time defilec? the beauteous surface of this earth, cities sor utterably and irretrievably sunk in sin an<3 depravity that the offended Majesty of Heaven, decreed upon them the most awful punishment which has ever been meted out against transgressors, deluging them in a great fiery flood of burning brimstone, with probably the added horrors of an earthquake, which sank the cities of the plain so as to form a watery basin, so that man might never again rebuild and inhabit them ; with also a terrible rain of blazing bitumen, mingled with the noxious suffocating fumes of various metallic substances, sodium potassium, etc., the salts of which still exisfe in the water. And to this day evidences of this destroying deluge of fire and brimstone ara abundantly aparrent lumps of sulphur, bitumen, etc., abounding upon the desolate shore. Almost the only tree which grows near the site of the submerged cities of Sodom and Gomorrah is the asbeye tree. The fruits of this strange shrub, which are about the sizo of a.n orange, present to the eye an appearance of supreme and fascinating beauty, being apparently luscious and juicy as a full ripe peach or nectarine. But the unwary traveller who, hot and thirsty, and perhaps acutely smarting and parched from having indiscreetly attempted to assuage his thirst witli a draught of the waters of Sodom and Gomorrah, recklessly plucks and eats the tempting fruit finds that his mouth is filled with loathsome rottenness and ashes, and that the foul viscoua " Apple of Sodom " is half choking him with its nauseous corruption. And just so is the experience of mankind all down the ages, from the time when our first parents, deliberately disobeying their Maker, found that the plucking of that tempting forbidden fruit entailed upon them and upon their posterity a smarting inheritance of suffering and bitterness; down to the present day, when the foolish infatuated transgressor, fatuously attracted by the alluring fascination of forbidden pleasures, or of an inert neglect of his duties to his God, finds that, like tha apples of Sodom, they are but foul rottenness and corruption, which will sink him, body and soul, into an eternal perdition. Happily, however, for mankind, He who, for some good reason altogether beyond our powers to comprehend permitted sin to defile the face of this beautiful earth, has also provided an effective means of deliverance from its full power. And that deliverance can only be attained through Uim. who, though King of Glory, gave Himself a ransom for us.

By using "Standard" Swede Turnip Seed sent out by Nimmo and Blair excellent crops are obtainable, and of a quality superior to anything else grown. For field compelitba or for show purposes it has no «iual.— Advfc