This description leaves out of account a remarkable group of _tells_, or mounds of earth and rubbish, strewn over with ruins, existing in the neighbourhood of Jericho. They are seven in number, and one of them is not far from Elisha’s Fountain, now called _Ain es Sultan_. One would imagine that the exploration of these mounds might yield valuable results; but nobody undertakes the work. It is true that some excavations made by Sir Charles Warren only proved the existence of sun-dried bricks; and because the mounds occur generally where the soil is alluvial, Conder regards them as piles of refuse bricks, and nothing more; but Sir J. W. Dawson, on visiting the place, noticed numerous flint chips in the mound, and Sir C. Warren, when presiding at my Guildford lecture, publicly expressed the opinion that many small objects of great interest would probably be found if the stuff were sifted.
But if the ruins of the Cities of the Plain are not discoverable, their names appear to linger in the district, slightly disguised as Arabic words, and applying to portions of the ground.
Conder justly remarks that the cities would probably be situated near fresh-water springs, and the great spring of ’Ain Feshkhah, on the north-west of the Dead Sea, is a probable site for one of them. The great bluff not far south of the spring is called Tubk ’Amriyeh by the Bedawin, and the neighbouring valley Wady ’Amriyeh. This word is radically identical with the Hebrew Gomorrah, or Amorah as it is spelt in one passage (Gen. x. 19), meaning, according to some authorities, “depression,” according to others, “cultivation.”
Admah means “red earth,” a description which would hardly apply to the ground near the Dead Sea. But there is no reason why all the four cities should be close to the Dead Sea. A convulsion overthrowing cities near the Sea would probably be felt a long way up the Jordan Valley, owing to the line of fault. Conder has pointed out, too, that the term Kikkar is applied in the Bible to the Jordan Valley as far north as Succoth. A “city Adam” is noticed in the Book of Joshua as being beside Zaretan; the name Ed Damieh applies to the neighbourhood of the Jordan ford east of Kurn Surtabeh, about 23 miles up the valley; and it has always seemed possible to Conder that Adam and Admah were one and the same. I would add a suggestion of my own in support of the view that Admah was some distance up the Jordan Valley. The passage Gen. x. 19 describes the boundary of Canaan, beginning at Sidon, following the coast line to Gaza, striking thence eastward to the Plain of the Jordan, and then proceeding up the Jordan Valley to Dan or Lasha--and the passage may be freely rendered thus,--“And the border of the Canaanite was from Sidon; thence you go towards Gerar, as far as Gaza; thence you go toward Sodom; then by Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboim, unto Dan.”[14] As Gerar was beyond Gaza southward, the boundary only went toward it; and as Sodom was beyond Jordan eastward, the boundary only went toward Sodom; there was no need to say it stopped at the river, for that was obvious. It then follows the course of the river from the Dead Sea to the source of the stream. And then the northern boundary is known without description. If this rendering holds good, then Gomorrah was north-west of the Dead Sea, on a line joining Gaza with Sodom; and the boundary of the Canaanites, after reaching Gomorrah, touched Admah and Zeboim, and continued northward to the grotto at Banias.