18 MAJOR-GEN. SIR C. W. WILSON, E.E., F.R.S.^ ON 



carries into the cistern much soHd matter, which falls to the 

 bottom and necessitates annual cleansing. It was into an 

 inicleansed cistern in the court of the guard that Jeremiah 

 was lowered (xxxviii, 6). Much of the sickness amongst 

 the poorer classes in summer and autumn is due to the 

 neglected state of the cisterns and want of care in sAveeping 

 roofs and pavements before collecting the rainfall. 



Pools. — The valleys Avhich enclose and intersect the 

 Jerasalem plateau offer peculiar facihties for the impounding 

 of flood water in pools, or reservoirs, and in each of them 

 there are either the remains of such pools or evidence of 

 their previous existence. The pools are all of great size^ 

 and partly rock-hewn ; and the dams at their lower ends, 

 where not of rock, are constructed of solid masonry of great 

 thickness. 



Near the head of the Kidron Valle}^ are the remains of a 

 large pool well situated for the collection of flood water; 

 but the conduit through which the water ran down to the 

 city has not yet been found. At the lower end of the valley 

 was " Solomon's pool," mentioned above, which is perhaps 

 that referred to by Nehemiah (iii, 16) as "the pool that 

 was made." 



In St. Anne's Valle}'- there are the twin pools near the 

 Church of St, Anne which are believed by some authorities 

 to be the Pool of Bethesda, and, lower down the valley, the 

 Birket Israil, also identified with Bethesda, which in recent 

 years has been filled up with rubbish and refuse. The dam 

 of the Birket Israil apparently formed part of the second 

 ivalU and so of the defences of the city. 



There is documentary evidence, brought to notice by 

 M. Clermoni-Ganneau, of the existence of a pool near the 

 head of the Tyropoeon Valley. In a charter dated 1177 it is 

 termed the " lake " of Legerius, and, in some old Arab title 

 deeds, the ground in the vicinity is called Haret el-Birkeh, 

 the " Quarter of the Pool." There is now no trace of the 

 pool, but it was apparently high enough to supply the 

 ancient rock-hewn conduit on the eastern spur {see below), 

 and it may be the " Upper Pool " referred to in Isaiah vii, 

 3 ; xxxvi, 2. At the lower end of the valley are the Upper 

 and Lower Pools of Siloam, which were supplied with Avater 

 from the Fountain of the Virgin by means of the rock-hewn 

 tunnel supposed to have been constructed by Hezekiah. 

 The upper pool, of which the true dimensions were 

 determined by the excavations of Dr. Bliss for the Palestine 



