SECOND AQUEDUCT TO THE POOL OF SILOAM.

DURING the stay here of Professor Hayter Lewis, he suggested that I should, at a proper time and opportunity, make some excavations at Siloah on purpose to find traces of the old or first water conduit from the Virgin's Fountain, as I suggested in a former paper, published in Quarterly Statement, April, 1886, page 88. This work I completed last month, and it is now my privilege to report upon it. I have prepared the accompanying drawings, based on the printed plan he gave me, and on which he marked in red the exact sites where the excavations should be made.

The first shaft A was made in the very line, but about 40 feet south of the selected point, as the ground was there about 6 feet lower and waste, whereas at the selected spot cauliflower were planted, and the proprietor was not willing to allow excavations. Of course there was no great difference in regard of the expected result.

As the surface of the ground, where the shaft was made, is marked on the Ordnance Map, 2,099, and the bottom of Virgin's Well 2,087 feet, I hoped at the depth of about 12 to 15 feet to find the conduit.

the following:

We found

At 9 feet deep, met on the east side a wall which enabled us to go down deep, without wooden frames; but the hewn stones (only two layers) soon ended, and beneath them were unhewn rubble stones. I wished to know the depth at which the rock lies, and to ascertain its slope, so as to find the real valley.

At 14 feet deep the earth ended and a layer of small stones came and after it a thick layer of sand, with many small pieces of pottery, as if it had once been the watercourse of the valley. At about 20 feet, or 2,079 above the sea, when this layer ended, there was no rock, but stones and

earth; but the greater part was broken pottery. The wall now ended and proved to stand on a layer of chippings, 24 feet thick; then we struck a bottom of very hard concrete a few inches thick, consisting of lime and small stone chippings, with pounded bricks in it. Under it there was dry mud, like the deposit in a well or a pool. Working down a few feet, the work became dangerous, and required frames, so I drove in an iron rod 4 feet long, but it struck no rock. Thus at a height of 2,064 feet above the sea there is no rock. Has the valley really been so deep here, or have I come into an old pool? I cannot tell. Then the shaft was filled up as high as the wall, and a short gallery made over it, to learn its thickness; it proved to be only 2 feet thick. I imagine now the rock-hewn channel will be found about 40 feet or more to the west, as I have shown at E (?).

The second shaft I made at the exact spot he marked at B. (See printed plan.) There is, as section of shaft B will show, between the high scarp of the rock and the road, only made ground, sustained by a rubble wall, 15 feet wide, so the shaft was made at the side of the scarp. After 3 feet we struck a layer of chippings, which ran like water, but as it proved only 2 feet thick, we were able to continue the work. At 10 feet we struck the rock, a smooth surface, shelving a little to east, but ending after 4 feet and going perpendicularly down again; in front of it earth; in clearing some feet deep it was observed that there was a wall of rubble, forming a conduit or channel at the desired height. No cementing was observed, except on the top of the wall, which slopes eastwards. As I feared going down much deeper, the iron rod was driven down, and it came on hard ground-whether a large stone, or the rock, I cannot say.

Here we have, therefore, the ancient aqueduct, but in a damaged condition; the level answers pretty well-and as it is somewhat deeper than necessary, I suppose that the water always stood there, so that people might fetch it; or poured over eastwards to the gardens below. Having found the aqueduct, but in such a condition that some might doubt its existence, I wished to find it further north, and to continue the work, although the money at my disposal was at an end; yet, as the work had commenced, I thought it better to go on, and selected a place for a third shaft (see section of shaft marked C). As the famous Siloah conduit is so very narrow (only 13 feet) in its middle course, it could not have been tunnelled by men. They would have been obliged to lie down, and then they could not have cut through the hard rock. They must have done it in some other way—either making it so high that a man could stand upright and then filling it up again to its present height, which no man of common sense would do, or, as I suggest, they worked from above, making an open channel, which they afterwards covered with flat stones, so exactly that hardly a joint is visible. And even if visible at the beginning, the sediment from the water has in course of time so filled the joints up that the roof appears like rock. The conduit is only cut from above where the height is not too great; and this is the case along the eastern brow of the Ophel hill. In places where they have not cut down from above, the conduit is so high that a man kneeling could work in it. To strike the