346 Description of Minerals from Palestine. 
land ever made) for a burying-place, and for which he gave 
** four hundred shekels of silver.” In the field was the cave 
of Machpelah, where the weeping patriarch deposited the 
body of his beloved Sarah, the companion of his long pilgrim- 
age, and where his own body was destined to sleep, till it shall 
hear the sound of the archangel’s trump, calling it to life 
immortal. Here, too, were eatombed Isaac and Rebekah, 
Leah and Jacob. Whatacompany of worthies! ‘The very 
dust of this sepulchral cavern will constitute a part of the 
noblest inhabitants of the heavenly Paradise. Well may the 
spot be venerated as it is, by the followers, both of the cres- 
cent, and of the cross.’ ; 
“‘ We left the main road,” says D‘Arvieux, ‘from Beth- 
lehem to Hebron, about a league from the latter place, and 
turned.to the left, in order to sée the valley of Mamre, where 
Abraham dwelt. The foundations, and some very thick 
walls, of hewn stone, are all that remain of the church, 
built here, by the bishop of Jerusalem, in the days of Con- 
stantine.”? Over the cave, where the patriarchs were in- 
terred, St. Helena, travellers inform us, erected a magnili- 
cent church. From the walls of one of these edifices, and, 
probably from the former, Mr. Fisk took the above speci- 
. * A fragment of a column in the ruins of Capernaum.” 
An extremely beautiful granular marble, which has all the 
freshness and brilliancy of a specimen recently taken from 
a natural quarry. It has been full proof against the attacks 
of the elements, during the lapse of perhaps two thousand 
years. Although limestone is softer than granite, it is less 
liable to decomposition. This remark accords with the pb- 
servation of several travellers in Egypt, Greece, and Pales- 
tine. It appears, that the feldspar of the granite, is affected 
by the action of air and moisture, sooner than either of its 
other ingredients. “Of all natural substances used by the 
ancient artists,” says Dr. Clarke, “Parian marble, when 
without veins, and therefore free from extraneous bodies, 
seems to have best resisted the various attacks made upon 
ecian sculpture. It is found unaltered, when granite, and 
and even porphyry, coeval as to their artificial state, have 
suffered decomposition.” 
The town of Capernaum, from the rains of which the 
» iphia was taken,—a town, blessed by being the resi- 
nce of the Saviour, during most of the period of his min- 
