5 v ; "Mem gi HR a oD i i. i ' y § Qe BR Ba wy oR Wy a ad & 8 RR. Sa : a --r--. SP, " By REV. CLIFTON H. LEVY. RD comes from Port Said that the Dead Sea, In Palestine, is to "be made alive again" after countless ages, by an amazing feat of " modern engineering. x . First plans have been completed, under the supervision of British authorities, for the construction of a tunnel which will traverse, the entire Holy Land under grownd, through which the waters of the Mediterranean will pour into the Dead Bea and bring it to life once more, as it 'was in anclent prehistoric times. It is believed the project will be the medns of giving life and wealth, by irriga- tion, to many miles of arid, desert terri- tory. In addition, by the construction of turbines at different points along the path of the tunnel, electric power for civic and commercial uses will be furnished to the whole of Palestine. The tunnel will run directly beneath Jerusalem, and, when it is completed, vis- {tors may expect to see electric lights and street cars operated by its power in the Holy City. . Sl Ris A gigamis probieln } the sa. gineer point ew, for it mean the EE of a subterranean viaduct ¥ ¥ ¥ 41, vd Ppp a ll as, bees 3 of al 2 cally no higher than that in the ocean. : The engineers who 'plan the revival of life ip and around the Dead Sea realize that ' their task is an enor mous one, but they do not believe they will encounter any problems which mod- ern machinery cannot solve. The Sim- plon Tunnel, which runs under the Alps between Switzerland and Italy, was dug at a very high elevation through selid rock, and had to be dug with far greater care and at greater expense than will be necessary here. The engineers will sure- ly encounter some rock, but they believe that most of the tunneling will be "easy goivg." The fall of 1,300 feet will, make' it pos- sible to construct power stations, beneath ground, In which the water will fall over turbine wheels, through which enough clectric power can be generated to rum ell the electric hting plants, factories and: railways in fouthern Palestine. As the tunnel "will run directly under Jerusalem itself, which lies on a line with the northern end of the Dead Sea, there will be no loss in transmitting the power to that central point. The surface of the earth will not be dis- turbed at Jerusalem, nor will any of the sacred buildings or shrines be endangered, for Jerusalem is above the sea level In the Judaean mountains. It is believed that the climate itselt around the Dead Sea will be profoundly AUST Mito Put Life Into The Dead Sea Amazing Feat of Irrigation Engineering to Make the Holy Land, Where Christ Walked with His Disciples, a Center of ~ Medern Industry and Agriculture v affected by the change. The evaporation of the fresher water will be more rapid, the surface of the sea will be greater when it spreads out over surrounding plains, and consequently the local rainfalls will be more abun- dant, There is no danger that the spread of the Dead Sea will -trend westward overflowing any of the citiés or sacred places of the Holy Land. High cliffs rise westward to 4,400 feet. Other cliffs and mountains lle eastward. The waters, therefore, will "back! up" toward the north along the valley of the River Jordan, and will spread out southward, covering a wide expanse of what is now sandy desert. There will not be any danger of flooding too 'widely the valley of the Jordanm, ex- cept ata few low-lying points, and then for a short distance only, as most of the Jor dan Valley is a huge or "fault" as the geologists call it, \In which lay a narrow lake more than 200 miles long in prehistoric days. . \ This project promises much for the land, even north Jerusalem, for with suffi the River Jordan and Old king Lake Deposits at Ed-Damieh, and, above. Tei of Dead Sea Looking North. cient power and an increased rainfall, irrigation would be made easier, and in some cases would ceas? to be necessary. Once more the Promised Land would "flow with milk and honey," for the greatest lack of agriculturists has' been water, due to the arid nature of the soil on the level lands and to the denuda tion of the soil on the slopes by 'the cutting down of the forests. proper 'to the is An Artist's Con. ception of the Gigantic Tunnel Which Will Pass Under Jerusalem to Pour Water from the Mediterranean Into the Dead Sea. The White Space Be- tween the Surface of the City and the Ex- cavations Really Rep- resents, a Depth of Several Hundred Feet. vo grown in large quantities in ancient times. In order to understand precisely what will_gecur when the waters of the Medi terranean pour into the Dead Sea by the million tons daily, we must consider 'the great valley of the Jordan, which the Arabs call the "Ghor." This depression of more / than 5,000 feet, in which the Dead Ses and the Jordan River valley lie is part of a great geological "fault" extends ing from Antioch, in Syria, southward bes tween the Lebanon mountains and the range of which Mount Hermon is the sume mit, and onward through the Jordan valley and its continuation to the Gulf of Akabs " and the Red Sea. The earthquakes which still occur front time to time in the region of the Dead Sea are but the last shivering movements of the earth's crust which have been in progress here since the middle of the Ter tiary period (long before man came on earth), and which in their total result have produced the depression. It is as it a vast block of solid rock fifty or sixty miles . wide and hundreds of miles long had broken, off from' the main mass ex- tending eastward, and thus had created the gaping crevasse which geparates Pal- estine proper from the plains of Moab. This ground is of especial interest to Bible students for it is closely connected with the story. of Lot and Abraham in the Old Testament.\ Those who know thelr Book of Genesis will remember that when the lierdsmen of Abraham quarrelled with those of his nephew Lot, Abraham ad- . vised that they separate and gave Lot the privilege of choosing where he would go. Lot went to Sodom. Warned of the im pending doom, he hastened to leave, warn. ing his wife and children not to look back, but Lot's wife did look back and was turned into "'a pillar of salt." The vivid description of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, where it is sald the brimstone was rained down upon these cities and that the scene was "as the smoke of a furnace," is Lorne out by the fact that there sre still volcanoes in the neighborhood and many hot springs, show- ing that the inner fires are not very far from the surface. All this happened something like forty centuries ago, for Abraham lived in 2100 B. C, and it is quite remarkable that now the very site of the destruction of two of the great cities of ancient times will be the centre of a project to bring back pros perity and agricultural wealth 'to the country. . The Mediterranean Sea is really an inland ocean, of enormous size, e: from the Straits of Gibraitar on the west to Asla on the east, and covering many thousand miles of surface. It can easily spare millions upon millions of tons of water, for it is not only fed by the gréat rivers of Europe, Asia and Africa, but is connected directly with the vast Atlantie Ocean, and consequently its waters are inexhaustible, Map Showing Subterranean Route of the Proposed Gigantic Tmnel,