BELEUS or Belus, a little river of Galilee, which falls into the Mediterranean, at the distance of two Furlongs from Ptolemais1. Pliny says2, it springs up in a lake, and does not run above the space of four miles. Its waters are not good to drink, and the bottom of it is marshy; but the water of the Sea flowing with the tide into its channel, washes away the sand, and of this they make Glass. The bank, from whence the sand is taken for this use, is not in extent above five hundred Paces, and tho’, for so many Ages, so much has continually been carried away, yet it remains inexhaustible, and furnishes perpetually a fresh stock. Josephus and Tacitus3 speak of it as well as Pliny; but the Authors who treat of the Holy Wars, take no other notice of the sands of Belus, than of something which in their time was out of use, and known only by the writings of the Ancients.
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