The same current is observed working still more strongly in the
travels of the Rev. Henry Maundrell, an English chaplain at Aleppo,
who travelled through Palestine during the same year. He pours
contempt over the legends of the Dead Sea in general: as to the
story that birds could not fly over it, he says that he saw them
flying there; as to the utter absence of life in the sea, he saw
small shells in it; he saw no traces of any buried cities; and as
to the stories regarding the statue of Lot's wife and the proposal
to visit it, he says, "Nor could we give faith enough to these
reports to induce us to go on such an errand."
The influence of the Baconian philosophy on his mind is very clear;
for, in expressing his disbelief in the Dead Sea apples, with their
contents of ashes, he says that he saw none, and he cites Lord
Bacon in support of scepticism on this and similar points.
But the strongest effect of this growing scepticism is seen near
the end of that century, when the eminent Dutch commentator
Clericus (Le Clerc) published his commentary on the Pentateuch and
his _Dissertation on the Statue of Salt_.
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