308 On the Sabbatic River. 
sores and great violence, to irrigate the extensive plantations of 
this richest of Syrian convents. I examined the cave out of 
which the river flows, through a wide low aperture. It is situa- 
ted at the base of a limestone hill or rather mountain. This 
limestone hill is isolated—entangled in an almost boundless re- 
gion of trap rock. It was one of its resting days, when I visited 
the cave; but I noticed very evident traces, in the bed of the riv- 
er below; of the large volume of water which had meercn — 
it only the day before. 
_ Aecording to Josephus, the river ran on the seventh day, anid 
rested during the week; but Pliny reports that it flowed six days, 
and was dry on the seventh. At the present time it rests two 
days and runs on the third. To reconcile these discrepancies, we 
need not suppose either that the river (having grown old during 
1800 years) requires twice as much rest as when Josephus wrote ; 
or that St. George doubled the number of working days in order 
the better to irrigate his gardens. Both historians probably deri- 
ved their information from general rumor, and had not visited or 
examined the river for themselves. - And the numbers in both 
versions of the story were adopted, from a desire to connect so 
singular a phenomenon with the Jewish division of time. It is 
a of them iis: ‘strictly accurate; and — 
opinion of the setmcas without hav- 
ingp the viveriself to efer wane the actual f whose ac- 
ould swe must admit, siatapsiniers that one or abe other of these 
statements was literally exact, (and certainly they could not have 
both been true,) the difference betwixt the periods of activity and 
intermission eighteen hundred years ago, and at the present time, 
admits of a satisfactory explanation. I believe it is now well as 
certained that these intermitting fountains are nothing more thant 
the draining, on the principle of the Barees. of a a 
pool or reservoir of water. 
Let. A scant such a reser 
voir, under the mountain upon 
¥ which stands the convent of St 
3 
