Stepping stones of salt make a path to the sun for Dead Sea tourists. Along the shore, luxury hotels with nearby thermo-mineral springs offer treatment for skin ailments and respite from the workaday world. The Dead Sea—where nothing lives except a few simple organisms—has spawned, ironically, much growth in the region: in addition to tourists, the area attracts an army of workers to its extraction plants for potash, bromide, and other chemicals.