Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/781

j K J E 747 long. The fall of the river after leaving it is at first 40 feet per mile, but on entering the plain of Beisan it becomes only 10 or 12 feet per mile, and further south only 4 or 5 feet. The total length from Banias to the Dead Sea is 104 miles direct, and, as the level of the Dead Sea is 1292 5 below the Mediterranean, the total fall is nearly 2300 feet. Thus the Jordan is only half as long as the Thames, and the Sea of Galilee about equal in length to Windermere. The Ghor or valley of Jordan south of the Sea of Galilee varies in width from 4 to 14 miles east and west ; the course of the river is extremely tortuous, and it is hidden by a dense jungle of cane, willow, and tamarisk, growing on the water s edge in the sunken channel called Zor, which is about a mile wide, with steep banks of white marl 50 to 100 feet high. For the last few miles the stream is free from jungle, flowing through a muddy flat. The average width is from 30 to 50 yards, but in February the river " overflows its banks " (Josh. iii. 15) and fills the Zor. The Arabs enumerate some forty fords, mostly passable in summer only. Of these the most important is Abdrah near Beisan, probably the Bethabara of Origen, the Onomastica, and the common text of John i. 28, where Bethany is the true reading. There is a ferry immediately south of the Sea of Galilee, and another on the road from Shechem to Gilead ; the latter is called Ed Dumieh, and has been conjectured to preserve the name of Adam (Josh. iii. 16) or Admah (Gen. x. 19). The ford of Hajlali, east of Jericho, is probably that of Josh, iii., and is the traditional site of Bethabara. The four main affluents of Jordan are the Hieromax (Yarmuk) and the Jabbok on the east, and on the west the Jaliid passing Beisan, and the Fari a rising not far from Shechem. The supply of these and other perennial streams scarcely, however, balances the loss from evaporation of the river. Salt springs flow to Jordan along the greater part of its course south of Beisan. The valley, formed by a depression in the early Tertiary period, was once filled by a chain of lakes, and raised beaches have been found in various parts of the Ghor. JORDAN, CA.MILLE (1771-1821), French politician, was born in Lyons, January 11, 1771, of a well-to-do mercantile family. He was educated in Lyons, and from an early ags was imbued with the royalist principles that distinguished his townsmen. He actively supported by voice, pen, and musket his native town in its gallant resistance to the Convention ; and when Lyons fell, in Octobar 1793, Jordan fled. From Switzerland he passed in six months to England, where he formed acquaintances with other French exiles and with prominent British states men, and imbibed a lasting admiration for the English constitution. In 179G he returned to France, and next year he was sent by Lyons as a deputy to the council of five hundred. There his eloquence won him consideration. He earnestly supported what he felt to be true freedom, especially in matters of religious worship, though the energetic appeal on behalf of church bells in his Rapport siti la liberte des cultes procured him the sobriquet of Jordan-Cloche. Jordan would have been one of the vic tims of the coup d etat of the 18th Fructidor (September 4, 1797) hid he not escaped to Basel. Thence he went to Germany, where he met Goethe, and probably laid the foundation of his affection for German literature, especially as represented by Klopstock. Back again in France by 1800, he boldly published in 1802 his Vrai Sens du Vote National pour le Consulat a Vic., in which he exposed the ambitious schemes of the First Consul. He was unmolested, however, and during the first empire lived in literary retirement at Lyons with his wife and family, producing for the Lyons Academy occasional papers on the Influence reciproque de V Eloquence sur la Revolution et de la Revolu tion stir V Eloquence ; Etudes sur Klopstocl; &c. At the Restoration in 1814 he again emerged into public life. By Louis XVIII. he was ennobled and named a councillor of state ; and from 1816 he sat in the chamber of deputies as representative of Ain. At first he supported the ministry, but when they began to show signs of reaction he separated from them, and gradually came to be at the head of the constitutional opposition. His speeches in the chamber were always eloquent and powerful. Though warned by failing health to resign, Camille Jordan remained at his post till his death, May 19, 1821. To his pen we owe Lettre a M. Lamourclte, 1791 ; Histoirc de la Conversion d une Dame Parisienne, 1792; La Loi ct la Religion Vengees, 1792; Adrcsse a scs Commcttants sur la Revolution du 4 Scptcmlre 1797, 1797 ; Sur les Troubles de Lyon, 1818; La Session dc 1817, 1818. His Discours were collected in 1818. The "Frag ments Choisis," and translations from the German, were published in IS j/fbeille frangaise. Besides the various histories of the time, see for further details, vol. x. of the Revue Encyctopedique; and a paper on Jordan and Madame de Stael, by Sainte- Beuve, in the Revue ties Deux Alondes for March 1868. JORDANES, or JOENANDES, the historian of the Gothic nation, flourished about the middle of the 6th century of the Christian era. 1 All that we certainly know about his life is contained in three sentences of his history of the Goths (cap. 50), from which, among other particulars as to the history of his family, we learn that his grandfather Peria was notary to Candac, the chief of a confederation of Alans and other tribes settled during the latter half of the 5th century on the south of the Danube in the provinces which are now Bulgaria and the Dobrudscha. Jordanes himself was a notary until he renounced his worldly calling and took the vows of a monk. This, according to the manner of speaking of that day, is the meaning of his words " ante conversionem meam," though it is quite possible that he may at the same time have renounced the Arian creed of his forefathers, which it is clear that he no longer held when he wrote his Gothic history. It is probable that the latter part at any rate of the life of Jordanes was spent in Italy. In some early editions of his works he is called " episcopus Ravennas," but the ample details which we possess as to the bishops of Ra venna make it certain that he never occupied that see. He may have been a bishop, but the best authority for that assertion (according to the statement in Muratori s Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, i. 189) is only Sigebert of Gembloux, who lived five centuries later. Traces have been discovered of a certain Jordanes, bishop of Crotona, in 551, and a "Jordanes defensor ecclesise nostrae " is mentioned in a letter of Pope Pelagius in 55 G. We pass from the extremely shadowy personality of Jordanes to the more interesting question of his works. 1. The De Regnorum et Temporum Successwne, or, as he himself called it, Breviatio Chronicorum, was probably com posed in 550 or 551. It is a short and dry sketch of the history of the world from the creation, founded on the chronicles of Eusebius and Jerome. The book has no value, literary or historical, till the historian comes near to his own times ; and here, from about 450 to 550, the De Regnorum Successione is sometimes a really important authority, owing to the extreme scarcity of other infor mation as to this epoch. 2 2. The other work of Jordanes, De Rebus Geticis, as it is commonly called, was styled by himself De Origlne Actuque Geticse, Gentis, and was probably written in the year 552. He informs us that while he was engaged upon 1 The evidence of MSS. is overwhelming against the form Jornancles adopted in the two earliest editions. Strictly speaking, the MSS. favour Jordanis ; but this seems to be only an incorrect spelling of Jordanes. 2 The terms of the dedication of this book to a certain Vigilius make it impossible that the pope of that name is meant.