Pliny writes, "From Pelusium are the intrenchments of Chabrias: mount Casius: the temple of Jupiter Casius: the tomb of Pompey the Great: Ostracine: Arabia is bounded sixty-five miles from Pelusium: soon after begins Idumea and Palestine from the rising up of the Sirbon lake." Either my eyes deceive me, while I read these things, -- or mount Casius lies nearer Pelusium, than the lake of Sirbon. The maps have ill placed the Sirbon between mount Casius and Pelusium.

Sirbon implies burning; the name of the lake being derived from its nature, which is fiery and bituminous. It is described by Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, and others, whom you may look upon. A lake like to that of Sodom, and perhaps was of the like fate and original; to wit, an example of divine indignation. What if it be the monument of that dreadful earthquake in the days of Uzziah, Amos 1:1, Zechariah 14:5? when God contended also in fire, Amos 7:4: so that some cities perished after the manner of Sodom and Gomorrha, Amos 4:11; Isaiah 1:9.

The farthest border of the land of Israel southward is not Nile in Egypt, but Shihor in the way to Egypt, Joshua 13:3; Jeremiah 2:18. In the Seventy interpreters, it is Rhinocorura; for they render that in Isaiah 27:12, "unto the stream of Egypt." "Unto Rhinocorura." Of which place and name, derived from the 'cutting of nostrils,' see Diodorus Siculus, lib.1. [60.]