The Jordan’s Dauntless Explorers

The Jordan is one of the most recognized geographical names in the Western world. Nevertheless, little of scientific value was known about this river until the middle of the 19th century.

The first recorded attempt to descend the Jordan by boat was made in 1835 by 25-year-old Christopher Costigan of Dublin. Costigan’s studies as a candidate for the priesthood led him to an intense interest in the Jordan River and Dead Sea. Unfortunately, he made the mistake of starting out on his adventure in July, when the heat was most intense and when the Jordan River was at its shallowest. For three days he struggled to get his boat through rapids, around landslides, over falls and out of shallows. When his servant would go no farther, Costigan abandoned his attempt to navigate the river. He had his boat transported by camel to Jericho, where he arrived in tatters. Still undaunted, he and his servant took a scientific voyage around the Dead Sea in the August heat. Fatigue and lack of sufficient fresh water debilitated them Costigan contracted a severe fever and later died in Jerusalem. However, his voyage was reconstructed and reproduced as a map in John Lloyd Stephens’ Incidents of Travel in…the Holy Land (1837, reissued in 1970 by University of Oklahoma Press).