Volume - The Clarence Darrow Collection

BEGINNINGS OF SCEPTICISM.
to be found in American annals. Never was anything so
happy-go-lucky. Lieutenant Lynch started with his hulk,
with hardly an instrument save those ordinarily found on
shipboard, and with a body of men probably the most unfit
for anything like scientific investigation ever sent on such
an errand ; fortunately, he picked up a young instructor in
mathematics, Mr. Anderson, and added to his apparatus two
strong iron boats.
Arriving, after a tedious voyage, on the coast of Asia
Minor, he set to work. He had no adequate preparation in
general history, archaeology, or the physical sciences ; but he
had his American patriotism, energy, pluck, pride, and de-
votion to duty, and these qualities stood him in good stead.
With great labour he got the iron boats across the country.
Then the tug of war began. First of all investigators, he
forced his way through the whole length of the river Jordan
and from end to end of the Dead Sea. There were constant
difficulties geographical, climatic, and personal ; but Lynch
cut through them all. He was brave or shrewd, as there
was need. Anderson proved an admirable helper, and together
they made surveys of distances, altitudes, depths, and
sundry simple investigations in a geological, mineralogical,
and chemical way. Much was poorly done, much was left
undone, but the general result was most honourable both to
Lynch and Anderson and ; Secretary Mason found that his
easy-going patronage of the enterprise was the best act of
his official life.
The results of this expedition on public opinion were
had
most curious. Lynch was no scholar in any sense ; he
travelled little, and thought less on the real questions under-
lying the whole investigation ; as to the difference in depth
of the two parts of the lake, he jumped with a sailor's dis-
regard of logic to the conclusion that it somehow proved
the mythical account of the overwhelming of the cities, and
he indulged in reflections of a sort probably suggested by
his recollections of American Sunday-schools.
Especially noteworthy is his treatment of the legend of
Lot's wife. He found the pillar of salt. It happened to be
at that period a circular column of friable salt rock, about
forty feet high ;
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yet, while he accepts every other old myth,