NATURAL SCIENCES OP PHILADELPHIA. 263 



at seven hundred and fifty feet, and the circumference upwards of three 

 thousand feet. The roof is supported by numerous regular pillars hewn out 

 of the solid limestone rock. The floor from the entrance to the termination 

 forms an inclined plane, the descent of which is in some places very rapid. 

 About 100 feet from the entrance a very deep and precipitous pit was dis- 

 covered containing a human skeleton ; supposed to be that of some unfortu- 

 nate who had fallen headlong down and broken his neck, or rather his skull, 

 judging from the fracture which it exhibits. The bones, of almost giant pro- 

 portions, gave evidence, from their decayed state, of having remained in that 

 position for many years. The skull, unlike the rest of the skeleton, was in a 

 remarkable state of preservation. Numerous crosses on the wall indicate that 

 the devout Pilgrim or Crusader had been there ; and a few Arabic and Hebrew 

 inscriptions too much effaced to be deciphered prove that the place was not 

 unknown to the Jew and the Arab. The explorers found many intricate, 

 meandering passages leading to immense halls as white as the driven snow, 

 and supported by colossal pillars of irregular shape ; some of them placed 

 there by the hand of nature, others of them evidently by the stone quarriers 

 to prevent the intumbling of the city. From their explorations the party con- 

 cluded that this cavern and the Grotto of Jeremiah, two or three hundred 

 yards distant, originally constituted one immense cave which was formerly 

 the great quarry of Jerusalem. 



The cave appears, therefore, to be a very old one. An allusion to it under 

 the name of the " Cotton Grotto " is made by Kadi Mejr-ed-din in an Arabic MS., 

 entitled " The Sublime Companion to the History of Jerusalem and Hebron," 

 and bearing date, A. D. 1495. A gentleman who entered the cave subse- 

 quently to the visit of the Messrs. Barclay, tells us, in the " Boston Traveller," 

 that though its existence was long suspected, "nothing was positively known 

 regarding it, as it has been kept carefully closed by the successive governors 

 of Jerusalem. The mouth of the cavern was probably walled up as early as 

 the times of the crusades, to prevent its falling into the hands of a besieging 

 army ; earth was thrown up against this wall, so as effectually to conceal it 

 from view, and it is only upon the closest scrutiny that the present entrance 

 can be perceived." Piles of stone chippings, and blocks of stone but half- 

 quarried, and still attached by one side to the rock, were encountered in dif- 

 ferent parts of the cave. The marks of the cutting instruments were as plain 

 and well-defined as if the workman had but just ceased from his labor. Those 

 who visited the cave were of the opinion that it had been worked as a quarry 

 during the days of Solomon. The following reasons appear to fav6r this 

 opinion. The stone is the same as that of the portions of the Temple wall 

 still remaining, and referred by Dr. Robinson to the period of the first build- 

 ing. From the former entrance of the cave to the Temple area is a gently in- 

 clined plane a fact that suggests a satisfactory solution of what has hereto- 

 fore been regarded as a very puzzling question the difficulty of placing such 

 immense masses of rock in situ, as those found at the south-east and south- 

 west corners of the Temple wall. The heaps of chippings which lie about 

 show that the stone was dressed on the spot, which accords with the account 

 of the building of the Temple. To these reasons we may also add the extent 

 of the quarry, trie amount of stone which must have been worked out there, the 

 size of some of the blocks themselves, the extreme age of the part which has 

 been exposed to the action of the elements, and which dates back in legends 

 and traditions to the time of Jeremiah, the fact that there are no other quar- 

 ries of any great size near the city, and especially the fact that in the reign of 

 Solomon this quarry, in its whole extent, was without the limits of the city. 



In the absence of any positive evidence to be derived from the skull itself, 

 these statements are introduced here as being calculated to throw some light 

 upon the question of its antiquity ormodernness, and consequently, to a certain 

 extent, its nationality. 



1859.] 



