Jordan

Jordan ('descending'), the principal river of Palestine, the bed of which forms a great valley stretching from north to south, in the eastern part of the country. It is formed by the junction of three streams. The highest source of the Jordan is the Hasbany, which rises near the Druse town of Hasbeiya, on the west side of Mount Hermon. There is another spring on the south side of the same mountain at Bānias (Paneas or Cæsarea Philippi), and the Leddān at Dan. The Jordan flows south, and after a course of a little over 100 miles, having passed through the small Huleh Lake (The Waters of Merom) and the Lake of Tiberias (Sea of Galilee), 682 feet below the Mediterranean, it falls into the northern extremity of the Dead Sea (q.v.), 1292 feet below the Mediterranean. Besides smaller affluents, it receives four streams, the Wady Far'ah and Wady Kelt from the west, the Hieromax and Jabbok from the east. M'Gregor estimates the Jordan to have 200 miles of channel from the Hasbeiya source to the Dead Sea. The source is 1700 feet above the Mediterranean, making a total fall when it reaches the Dead Sea of 3000 feet. The bed of the river varies much in breadth, from 30 to 50 yards, flows latterly in a sunken channel, and its banks of white marl are in some places flat, in others steep; in the north partly occupied by fields of barley, but barren below Jericho. There are upwards of forty fords, but the two at Jericho are impassable when the river is in flood. The course of the Lower Jordan was explored by Lieutenant Molyneux in 1847, by Lieutenant Lynch in 1848; the Upper Jordan for the first time by John M'Gregor in his Rob Roy causer in 1869.