VOL. LVT.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ~ 281 



stones than granite be once destroyed, it never returns. It is a most curious 

 lusus naturae, and the Mahometans turn it to their account. Meribah is in- 

 deed surprizingly striking. He examined the lips of its mouths, and found that 

 no chissel had ever worked there ; the channel is plainly worn by only the course 

 of water, and the bare inspection of it is sufficient to convince any one it is not 

 the work of man. Among the innumerable cracks in rocks, which he had seen 

 in this, as well as other parts of the world, he never met with any like this, 

 except that at Jerusalem, and the two in the rock which Moses struck twice. 



He inquired of the Monks, as well as Arabs, about certain places, as well as 

 about some ruins, supposed by the bishop of Ossory, to be Kadesh Barnea : the 

 former could only tell him they had not received any fish from thence in many 

 years; that it was two easy days journey oft", but the road was mountainous; so 

 one may suppose the distance less than 40 miles. The Arabs agreed as to the 

 road; but they said, it was once a large place, where their prince lived, whose 

 daughter Moses married ; that Moses was afterwards their prince, and the 

 greatest of all prophets. These Arabs place Moses the first, Solomon the 

 second, Mahomet the third, Christ the fourth, and then the prophets of the 

 Bible. As to Dzahab, the Monks only knew the distance to be 4 days journey, 

 and that there was a road from it to Jerusalem : the Arabs told him the same, so 

 the distance is about 80 miles. He inquired of them all about the ruins; they 

 told him there were very considerable ones about half way to Dzahab, about 40 

 miles from Sinai; but he thinks Kadesh must have been much nearer to Jerusa- 

 lem. He would willingly have gone to these places; but as the 4 clans of Arabs, 

 which inhabit this promontory, were then at war one with the other, he could 

 get no conductor. However, combining the whole together, and comparing it 

 with what we collect from Scripture, he thinks we may well conclude, Sharme 

 to be M'dian, and Meenah El Dzahab to be Eziongeber: what the interjacent 

 ruins are he cannot conjecture; but he believes he had found Kadesh Barnea to 

 be elsewheie. He thinks it cannot be here, for the Israelites were on the bor- 

 ders of the Holy Land, or Land of Promise, when they were ordered back; 

 and when they were stopped by the Moabites, they are said to have been brought 

 up from Kadesh Barnea. 



There are two roads from Mount Sinai to Jerusalem ; the one through Pharan, 

 the other by the way of Dzahab: that through Pharan is 11 days journey; 2 to 

 Pharan, 3 to a station of the Mecca pilgrims called Scheich Ali, one and a half 

 to some considerable ruins; all this to the northward: thence rather more than 

 4 to Jerusalem, by way of Hebron, leaving the Asphaltic Lake on the right 

 hand to the south-eastward. The other way is longer, on account of the road 

 being more mountainous; that too passes the same ruins, and also Scheich Ali. 

 He inquired about this at Jerusalem, and received the very same account, with 

 VOL. XII. O o 



