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Thus it would appear that the heat increases with the depth from the upper surface of the table-land; a result which might be expected, supposing the heated volcanic rocks to be themselves the source of the high temperature. To a similar cause may be attributed the hot-springs of Hammath, near Tiberias, and those of the Yarmûk near its confluence with the Jordan.
The statement receives confirmation from the observations of Canon Tristram, made in the valley of the Yarmûk. This impetuous torrent rushes down a gorge, sometimes having limestone on one side and a wall of basalt on the other.
North of Gilead and the Yarmuk was the volcanic plateau of Bashan, Ziri-Basana, or "the Plain of Bashan," as it is termed in the cuneiform tablets of Tel el-Amarna. Bashan was included in the Haurân, the name of which we first meet with on the monuments of the Assyrian king Assur-bani-pal. The gardens of Damascus lie 2260 feet above the sea.
But, in addition to this, it has been observed that there is a bed of river gravel interposed between two sheets of basalt in the Yarmûk ravine; showing that after the first flow of that molten rock the river reoccupied its channel, which was afterwards invaded by another molten lava-stream, into which the waters have again furrowed the channel which they now occupy.
The depression of the Jordan-Arabah valley, the elevation of the eastern side of this valley along the great fault line, and the channels of the principal tributary streams, such as those of the Yarmûk and Zerka Maïn, all these had been eroded out before they were invaded by the molten streams of lava.
Most important of these was the railway, which, leaving the main Damascus-Hejaz line at Deraa, ran westwards down the Yarmuk Valley to the Jordan, thence through Beisan, and up the Vale of Jezreel and along the Plain of Esdraelon to Haifa. Thence a short line ran on to Nablus, while the main line continued down the slope of the Wadi Shair to the Maritime Plain, which it reached at Tul Keram.
Within ten years of the Hegira, or commencement of the Mahomedan era, we find the followers of the Prophet already in Syria. The Byzantine army was overwhelmed at the battle of the Yarmuk, and the Arabs laid siege to Jerusalem. The city capitulated to Omar, who granted terms of comparative magnanimity.
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