The Tell is a mound with steep slopes, from two or three to twenty or thirty feet high; a large Tell is often surrounded by smaller ones irregularly scattered; they are of no particular shape, and they show no signs of stone masonry, being outwardly earthen mounds, whilst inwardly, Captain Warren's excavations proved them in some cases to consist of sun-dried bricks.
The Tells all occur in alluvial soil, and I believe there is scarcely an instance in which water--a spring or a stream--is not found close by. It is true that Tells exist near the passes of the hills and by the Jordan fords, but this is, I think, no proof that they were fortresses, for half the number are placed in positions of no strategical value, and those which are so placed will be found also to stand by water either springing from the hills or flowing into Jordan.
Brick mounds in clay land by water are suggestive of brick-making. Travellers from India and from Egypt have recognised a similarity between the Jordan Valley Tells and the great mounds of refuse bricks, found in both those countries, on which other bricks are laid out to dry in the sun. This seems to me the most probable origin of the Tells.
The preceding observations are intended to give a general idea of the physical features of the Jordan Valley, and of their relation to its probable origin, as well as of the most striking archæological features. We may now return to the history of the second Jordan Valley campaign, and to the principal Biblical discoveries which rewarded us for months of most severe exertion.
The Survey was interrupted from the 4th of December 1873 to the 24th of February 1874, in consequence of the severe attacks of fever from which the whole party suffered at Jericho, and afterwards while wintering in Jerusalem; but on the 24th of February we marched down into the valley, and by the 20th of April we had completed the work to within three miles of the Sea of Galilee; the rate obtained was nearly 300 square miles per month, being treble that which had been possible with the smaller, and inexperienced party, which I had conducted through the Samaritan mountains.
Descending by the familiar pass of Wâdy Kelt, we found the valley completely changed in appearance. It was no longer all white and glaring chalk, but a broad expanse of deep pasture; the Kelt was a rapid stream running with a loud murmur in its rocky chasm.