Volume - The Clarence Darrow Collection

BEGINNINGS OF SCEPTICISM.
naturally declaring that " it was not Lot who wrote the book
of Genesis."
The result was that another edition of De Saulcy's work
was published by a Church Book Society, with the offending
passage omitted but a ; passage was retained really far
more suggestive of heterodoxy, and this was an Arab legend
accounting for the origin of certain rocks near the Dead Sea
curiously resembling salt formations. This in effect ran as
follows :
" Abraham, the friend of God, having come here one day
with his mule to buy salt, the salt-workers impudently told
him that they had no salt to sell, whereupon the patriarch
said :
' Your words are true ; you have no salt to sell,' and
instantly the salt of this whole region was transformed into
Stone, or rather into a salt which has lost its savour."
Nothing could be more sure than this story to throw
light into the mental and moral process by which the salt
pillar myth was originally created.
In the years 1864 and 1865 came an expedition on a much
more imposing scale : that of the Due de Luynes. His
knowledge of archaeology and his wealth were freely devoted
to working the mine which Lynch had opened, and,
taking with him an iron vessel and several savants, he devoted
himself especially to finding the cities of the Dead
Sea, and to giving less vague accounts of them than those of
De Saulcy. But he was disappointed, and honest enough to
confess his disappointment. So vanished one of the most
cherished parts of the legend.
But worse remained behind. In the orthodox duke's
company was an acute geologist, Monsieur Lartet, who in
due time made an elaborate report, which let a flood of light
into the whole region.
The Abb6 Richard had been rejoicing the orthodox heart
of France by exhibiting some prehistoric flint implements as
the knives which Joshua had made for circumcision. By a
truthful statement Monsieur Lartet set all France laughing
at the Abbe, and then turned to the geology of the Dead
Sea basin. While he conceded that man may have seen
some volcanic crisis there, and may have preserved a vivid
remembrance of the vapour then rising, his whole argu-
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