Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/665

JERUSALEM 637 the Eocene and Chalk formations, having a general dip down from the watershed of about 10E.S.E. The action of denudation has left patches of the various strata, but generally speaking the oldest are on the west. The upper part of the Olivet chain consists of a soft white limestone, with fossils and flint bands belonging to the Upper Chalk: beneath this are first, a hard silicious chalk, with flint bands ; secondly, a soft white limestone, much used in the ancient buildings of the city ; thirdly, a hard chalk, often pink and white in colour, and then known as Sta. Croce marble. The underlying beds belonging to the period of the Greensand are not visible, the lowest strata in the Kidron precipices belonging to the Lower Chalkepoch. The actual position of the city at various times has differed but little in comparison with other capitals. The outline of the small spurs concerning which so many famous controversies have arisen is now much obscured by the accumulation of rubbish, which has been increasing ever since the time of Nehemiah (Neh. iv. 10). There is an average depth of from 30 to 40 feet of this debris through out the town, and the foundations of the modern houses Contours of Ancient Jerusalem, with the line of the Walls, according to Lieut. Conder. often stand upon it. In the valleys there is a depth of 70 feet, and east of the temple in one place shafts were sunk 1 20 feet before the rock was reached. The natural features of the ground, although unaltered and traceable to a practised eye, are thus less sharply accentuated than in the ancient period of the city s history. As, however, we have now more than two hundred and fifty actual observations of the rock levels in an area of 210 acres, there is no diffi culty in recovering the general features of the ancient natural site of the town. The quadrangle included between the two outer valleys above described is again split up by a valley, the Tyropoeon of Josephus, which divides the plateau into two main spurs, that on the east being the temple hill, that on the west the seat of the upper city. The Tyropoeon is both shallower and broader than the boundary ravines already noticed, its depth averaging only from 100 to 150 feet below the crests of the ridges. Its real head is immediately outside the present Damascus gate and the north wall of the modern city, whence it runs with a curved course southwards to join the Kidron just above the junction with the western boundary valley, a distance of about 1600 yards. There is, however, a second affluent or head of the central valley on the west side of its main course a kind of dell or theatre-shaped depression extending westwards for more than 300 yards, and measuring not quite 200 yards north and south, Thus, while the eastern ridge is unbroken, the western is divided into two summits joined by a narrow saddle which separates the head of the broad central valley just described from the upper part of the western boundary valley. Of the two western hill tops, that towards the south is the largest and most lofty. It has a trapezoid shape, and terminates on all sides in steep slopes, which are in places precipitous, and it is only joined to the watershed by the connecting saddle, which is scarcely 50 yards in width. This high southern hill measures 2000 feet north and south by about 1300 feet east and west. The highest part is towards the west, where the level of the flat broad summit is about 2520 feet above the Mediterranean. The smaller northern knoll or hill top, bounded on the east by the great central valley of Jerusalem, on the south by the theatre-shaped valley which separates it from the high southern hill, and on the west by a small subsidiary depres sion running north, rises to a summit not more than 2490 feet in elevation, or 30 feet below the flat top of the larger southern hill. The eastern ridge, on which the temple stood, has a height towards the north of about 2500 feet; it then becomes narrower, and is artificially divided by a deep rock-cut trench running east and west. Its original form within the temple enclosure was that of a rounded top with a steep western slope and a more gentle gradient on the east, the level of the ridge falling from 24GO to 2300 feet in a length of about 500 yards. The end of this ridge is formed by a tongue of ground between the Kidron and the shallow central valley, falling rapidly in 400 yards to a level only 50 feet above the valley beds. The identity of the present Haram (or sanctuary) with the ancient temple enclosure is undisputed, the only question which has arisen being whether the boundary walls now existing coincide with the outer ramparts of Herod s temple enclosure. The Haram is a quadrangle containing 35 acres, the interior surface roughly levelled, partly by filling up with earth the portions where the rock is lowest, partly by means of vaulted substructures of various ages. The most important results of Captain Warren s excavations were those connected with the exploration of the rampart walls, which measure 1601 feet on the west, 922 on south, 1530 on east, and 1042 feet on north, the south-west angle being 90 and the south-east 92 30 . The height of the wall varies from 30 to 170 feet. On the west, on the south, and on the east for probably 1090 feet from the south-east corner, the masonry is all of one style, the stones being of great size with a marginal draft, the imperfect finish of the faces in some of the lower courses apparently showing that the foundation- stones were never visible above the surface. The north part of the east wall consists, however, of masonry differ ing somewhat from the rest, the finish being rougher and the stone of inferior quality. It was found that this wall is continued for some distance beyond the north-east corner of the present area. The present north wall is of quite a different kind of masonry, and appears to be much more recent, the substructures immediately inside being only as old as the 12th century. The north-west angle is formed by a projecting scarped block of rock measuring 350 feet east and west and 50 feet north and south, the height