from the south-western corner up to the Mehkemeh, that is, beyond the Jews' Wailing Place towards the North." Subsequently, however, he writes: "I readily believe the Officers who measured Jerusalem in 1841, may be right in what they state about the south-west corner of the Haram, though it does not appear to me, when I look to it with my eyes only, having no instruments for ascertaining mathematically what we want to know."

Further, the two angles in question and the increasing width of the Haram towards the North, will satisfactorily account for the difference that all statements shew between the north and south walls2; which, even according to the lowest estimate, is too great to be accounted for by an obtuse angle at the south-east angle, and we are informed that the angle at the south-west is a right angle3.

For the completion of the survey it remains only to notice a few points without the northern boundary of the Haram. The Seráiyâh, or Government House, with a barrack and extensive offices, stands on the north side of the north-west angle, "probably occupying in part the site of the ancient fortress Antonia4." "It rests upon a precipice of rock, which formerly swept down abruptly, and has obviously been cut away to form the level below, which also bears marks of having been scarped." This rocky precipice, forming the base of

1 Under date, Beyroot, October 16, 1847.

2 Mr. Catherwood makes the length of the South wall to be 940 feet, the North 1020 feet. Bartlett, p. 175. The Officers' Survey gives the former as 877, the latter as 1180 feet.

3 Catherwood, in Bartlett's Walks,

p. 174.

4 Robinson's Bib. Res. Vol. I. p. 420.

5 Bartlett, p. 156, represented in a drawing, p. 108, of the same Work.

the building, rises to a height of upwards of 20 feet, as was seen in the interior survey".

The Gates and Pool on this side have been already noticed; but the latter will here require a fuller description. "It measures 360 English feet in length, 103 in breadth, and 75 in depth to the bottom; besides the rubbish which has been accumulating in it for ages. It was once evidently used as a reservoir;" and apparently was filled with water: for large fragments of the cement, which once cased the tank throughout, may still be seen on the wall, and the action of water is discernible upon it even in the upper parts. On the western side of its south-west angle, two lofty arched vaults extend in westward, side by side, under the houses which now cover that part. The southernmost of these arches is 12 feet in breadth, and the other 19 feet." Notwithstanding the accumulation of rubbish within and before them, "yet 100 feet may be measured within the northern one, and it seems to extend much further. This gives the whole work a length of at least 460 feet, equal to nearly one-half the whole breadth of the enclosure of the Mosk; and how much more we do not know." The vaults, even to the top of the arches, are cased with hard Roman cement, such as was commonly used in their baths, and the casing is much less decayed in the vault than in the tank itself. Whence this Pool received the enormous supply of water that was necessary to fill it, is a question of great interest, which will be discussed when I come to speak of the waters; but the masonry of the Pool is of peculiar construction, and deserves a more detailed notice. It consists of three distinct

See above, p. 300.

7 Bib. Res. Vol. 1. p. 434, &c.

layers of stones, one upon another. Of these the lowest is composed of courses of massive masonry, in which are inserted stones of a smaller size, which again form the basis of a thick layer of mortar, studded with the stones of the superficial coat, consisting of small pebbles, or quarries, set thickly, but not closely, so as to afford a strong hold to the exterior cement, which was profusely spread over these pebbles'. The east end of this pool is close to the city-wall, leaving only a narrow causeway between, which forms a communication from S. Mary's Gate with the Haram, through the Gate of the Tribes.

Having thus again reached the north-eastern corner of the enclosure, where our survey of the exterior commenced, I must endeavour to assign the various points which we have noticed, within and without the enclosure, to their respective places in the topography of the ancient city; a difficult task indeed; and if my deductions from existing phænomena should not prove more felicitous than those of earlier writers, I fear that the results will be far from satisfactory. In this case, however, as in many others, it is much more easy to detect and expose the errors of others than to discover and establish the truth. Still, as it will serve to familiarize the reader with the bearings of the question, and to demonstrate the nature of the difficulties in which it is involved, I shall examine, by the way, some modern theories and if I succeed in proving them to be untenable, because inconsistent with historical evidence or existing monuments, I shall at least have cleared the ground for a new hypothesis, which must then be sub

Mr. Wilde has given a woodcut of his description. Narrative, Vol. 11. sketch of this masonry in illustration p. 398.

jected to the same test, and accepted or rejected on its own intrinsic merits.

But as a few preliminary notes on the site of the Temple and its later history will much facilitate our subsequent enquiry, I shall address myself to this, when I have premised that in speaking of the Jewish Temple, I must be understood always (unless the contrary be distinctly stated) to refer to it in its latest aspect, as it was left by Herod the Great: For, as Josephus and the Rabbinical writers are well-nigh the sole authorities for any particulars of the arrangement and construction of the Temple, and as their accounts relate neither to the Temple of Solomon, (though they undoubtedly borrow much of their language, and probably something more, from that building,) nor to the restoration of Zerubbabel and Joshua, but to the Herodian structure, our enquiry is necessarily restricted to the last; for it were a vain attempt to recover, from the scanty records of the Scripture-narrative, the particulars of the Solomonic Temple2. There is another observation which it is important to bear in mind in investigating this subject. It is this; that the technical language of ancient writers is liable to considerable misconstruction, and we must carefully guard against the notion, that the terms popularly employed in a translation are exact equivalents to those of the originals. It may frequently happen, on the other hand, that the terms employed by the writers were not technical terms at all, but simply accommo

Josephus published his Jewish War at Rome cir. A.D. 75, and his Antiquities at the same place, cir. A.D. 93. The Tracts of the Mishna are of various and mostly of uncertain date,

but the earliest are subsequent to the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. The Middoth may be referred, with considerable certainty, to the end of the second century.

dations of ordinary language; for it must not be supposed that Josephus or the authors of Middoth, Yoma, and other Tracts of the Mishna, were professional architects, or thoroughly versed in the clerical language of the masonic craft.

With these preliminary remarks, I proceed to a general description of the arrangement of Herod's Temple, referring to the former volume for an account of the site and its original dedication to this sacred use1, and not designing here to enter into details of its architecture, of which we know next to nothing 2.

The Temple, then, in its widest signification (Tò iepòv), consisted of two Courts, one within the other, though the interior is sometimes further subdivided, and distributed into four other courts3. The area of the outer Court, (or Temple, as it is sometimes called,) was in great part artificial; for the natural level on the summit of the Mount being found too small for the Temple with its surrounding chambers, courts, and cloisters, was gradually increased by mechanical expedients. This extension was commenced by Solomon, who raised from the depth of the eastern valley a wall of enormous stones,

1 Vol. 1. pp. 15, 16.

2 Except that the Royal Cloister at the South was Corinthian: Ant. xv. xi. 5.

3 Viz., sometimes into 1, the Women's Court; 2, the Court of Israel; 3, the Court of the Priests; 4, the Inner Temple, as in Middoth; sometimes the Court of the Priests is regarded as Tρíτov lepov, as in Ant. XI. xi. 5.

The process is described by Josephus, Ant. Lib. VIII. cap. iii. sect. 9; and xv. xi. 3: and Bell. Jud. v. v. 1. Hrr. Krafft (p. 57, note 1,) says that

a Leyden MS. of Josephus reads ἠλιβάταις πέτραις for κατὰ λίβα ταὶς Téтpais, in the second passage here referred to. This would make very good sense, and the received reading makes none; for the context shews that the embankment was not on the South but on the East, as is further proved by the passage in the Wars, and by a comparison of Ant. xx. viii. 7 with xv. xi. 3. Besides, there was no valley on the South, whereas the Valley of Jehoshaphat is on the East. See Bib. Res. 1. p. 429, note 2.