It is recognised by Colonel Warren that the tunnel running southward to the Pool of Siloam was not the first tunnel excavated in connection with the Virgin's Fountain. A channel had previously been made from the Virgin's Fountain due west, for a distance of 67 feet, into the heart of the hill, and there communicated by a shaft and corridors with the surface. When the longer tunnel came to be made the engineers wisely availed themselves of the channel already existing, and began their new excavation at a distance of 50 feet from the Virgin's Fount. The priority of the channel running due west to the shaft appears to be undoubted; and it is clear that whatever mistakes of direction might be made by unscientific engineers when they had got some distance into the hill, they never would begin by working due west from the Virgin's Fount when their object was to make a channel south-south-west to Siloam Pool.
At the bottom of the shaft, which is 67 feet due west, Warren found the rock scooped out into a basin 3 feet deep, for the water to lie in, and at the top of the shaft an iron ring to which the rope of the bucket could be tied. The shaft was 40 feet in height, and then the space began to open out westward into a great cavern, there being a sloping ascent at an angle of 45°, covered with loose stones of about a foot cube. Warren says it was ticklish work ascending, for the stones all seemed longing to be off, and one starting would have sent the mass rolling, himself with it, on top of the serjeant, all to form a mash at the bottom of the shaft. After ascending about 30 feet they got on to a landing. The cave now opened out to south-west and north-west. Following it in the latter direction they arrived at a passage 40 feet long, at the far end of which was a rough wall. Creeping through a hole in this they ascended a steep staircase for 50 feet, passed another wall, and found themselves in a vaulted chamber. The exit at last was on
