The Adventures of Lot, the Nephew of Abraham, page 9 by William Andrus Alcott
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nd end of the Dead sea, to the eastern branch of the Red sea, is a little more than one hundred miles more. Now where the river Jordan ran quite through from Mount Lebanon to the Red sea, [footnote: 'I am not ignorant that the question whether the Jordan did really ever run through the valley of the Ghor is yet unsettled; but the evidence in favor of its having taken this course, appears to me so conclusive, that, after a long and tedious examination of the best authorities, I venture to speak in the manner above; not, however, without the caution afforded by this note.] its whole length could not have less than three hundred miles. At present it is scarcely two hundred, including the Dead sea, into which it enters; and which, ever since the destruction of Sodom, has stood there as a great basin, into which the Jordan has emptied itself, instead of going on one hundred miles farther, to the Red sea, is now a vast desert; but the valley of the Jordan is more productive, though less so than it was in the time of Lot and Abraham.
But even in the days of Lot, it was not very good as a grazing country. At least it was not so good, unless it were a time of famine, as the hill country. Besides, it was already pretty thickly inhabited, especially about the place where the Dead sea now is. Here stood the rich and somewhat populous cities, Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Bela or Zoar. Indeed, all the way from the sea of Galilee to what is now the southern end of the Dead sea, where Zoar then stood, was rich, populous and fertile. The Bible says that Lot "beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest into Zoar."
Whether Lot, in going to this section of country, had it in view to change his business, and from a pastoral employment to go into some mercantile pursuit, I cannot certainly tell; or even whether he had any definite notions on the subject. It seems t