Stephen Bell, age 11, of Victoria, B.C., Canada, for is question:
Is the Dead Sea a lake or an inlet?
The Holy Land of the Bible lies at the eastern end of the warm, blue Mediterranean Sea. Through it flows the River Jordan made famous in many of the Bible stories. And the Jordan empties its water into the low lying, salty body of water called the Dead Sea.
The Dead Sea is surrounded by land, by hot and dry desert land on every side. For this reason a strict geographer would call it a lake. The Mediterranean and many other seas are connected with the world wide system of linking oceans. The Dead Sea has no inlet or outlet that connects it with the global oceans. We cannot call it an inlet for its salty waters are barricaded from the salty waters of the major seas by wide stretches of dry land.
From the point of view of geography, we might argue that the Dead Sea is not even a Sea. It is only 10 miles wide and some 48 miles long, and its total area is no more than 405 square miles. Strictly speaking it is a small salt lake. However, it has been called a sea since ancient times, and no one seems eager to change its title. It was named perhaps at the dawn of history by desert dwellers who were used to trackless wastes of waterless sand. It must have seemed to them like a great sea.
The Dead Sea was not always such a small puddle, and its salty waters were once much fresher. In the geological past it was 190 miles long, and its waters filled most of the Jordan Valley. Its area shrank and is still shrinking because of changes in the restless crust of the Earth. It lies at the bottom of a deep crystal crack or fault alongside a volcanic belt that stretches from Syria south into Africa. Its shores are lined with lava and sulphur and other igneous rocks that cooled from the molten outpourings of ancient eruptions.
The surface of the Dead Sea is 1,300 feet below the sea level of the Mediterranean. Its surface became lower as it shrunk from its former area, and it is now the lowest body of water in the world. As it shrunk, its glassy waters also became saltier. It is fed by streams and rivers, by hot and cool springs, and all this fresh water bears traces of dissolved chemicals. Day by day, water vapor escapes from the surface, leaving the salts behind. The waters of the Dead Sea are six times saltier than the world oceans and getting saltier every day.
The Dead Sea is not an inlet of the world ocean, and properly speaking it may not even be a sea. But it certainly is a dead body of water. No birds hover above its glassy surface. They could not drink the bitter brine, nor could they find any food to eat. For the Dead Sea, is so salty that no fish can live there. A few enter with the flowing waters of the Jordan, but they soon perish in the salty waters of the lifeless sea.