SODOM AND GOMORRAH  , in biblical

geography, two of five cities (the others named Admah,, Zeboiim and Bela or Zoar) which were together known as the " cities of the Kikkar" (circle), somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea . They occupied a fertile region, chosen by , Lot for his dwelling (Gen. xiii . 10-12) . They were attacked by the four great East-ern kings and spoiled, but restored by the intervention of Abram and his men coming to the aid of Lot (Gen. xiv.) . They were proverbial for wickedness, for which they were destroyed by a rain of " fire and brimstone " (Gen. xix.) . The site of the cities, the historicity of the events narrated of them and the nature of the catastrophe that destroyed them, are matters of hot dispute . Modern names, more or less similar to the ancient appellations, have been noted in different parts of the Dead Sea area; but no certain identification can be based on these similarities . The most striking coincidence is Jebel Usdum, by some equated with confidence to Sodom . The names are radically identical; but the hill is merely a salt-ridge 600 ft. high and 7 M. long, and cannot possibly represent an ancient city . The most that can be said is that the names have lingered in the Jordan valley in a vague tradition—very likely helped by, if not entirely due to, literary accounts of the catastrophe—just as has the name of Lot himself in the Arab name of the Dead Sea . The catastrophe has been explained as a volcanic eruption, or an explosive outburst of gas and oil stored and accumulating at high pressure . The latter, to which parallels in geologically similar regions in America are not unknown, is the most probable natural explanation that can be offered .

(R . A . S .