342' Description of Minerals from Palestine. 



Buperb mosque. The views of the edifice, (into which no 

 Christian is allowed to enter,) struck this gentleman so forci- 

 bly, that he, unhesitatingly, pronounced it to be '• the most 

 raat'nificent piece of architecture in the Turkish emjDire. and 

 far superior to the mosque of St Sophia in Constantinople.'^ 

 Mount Zion is situate ou the south side of the city. " On 

 quitting the city by 'Zion Gale,' and descending," says Dr. 

 Clarke, " into a narrow dale, sloping towards the valley of 

 Jehoshaphai, we obs rved. upon the sides of the opposite 

 mountain faring Mount Zion, a iiuuiber of excavati-ns in 

 the rock. We rode toward? them, their situation being very 

 little elevated above the bottotn of ! he dale, upon its southern 

 side. When we arrived, we instrintly r<-cognised the sort of 

 sepulchres, which had so much interested us m Asia Minor. 

 They were all of the same kind of workmanship, exhibiting 

 a series of subterranean chambers, hewn with marvellous art, 

 each cont.'ining one, or many, repositories for the dead, like 

 cisterns, carved in the rock, upon the sides of those cham- 

 bers. The doors were so low, that to look into any one of 

 them, it was necessary to stoop, and m some instances, to 

 creep upon our hands and knees ; these doors were grooved, 

 for the reception of immense stones, once squared and fitted 

 to the grooves, by way of closing the entrances. Of such a 

 nature were, indisputably, the " tombs of the sons of Heth, 

 of the kings of Israel, of Lazarus, and of Christ." (Clarke.) 

 These sepulchres were discovered by this English traveller, 

 who adduces several weighty arguments to prove, that among 

 them was the sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathea, in which the 

 body of the Saviour was interred. This supposition, he be- 

 lieves, accords far better with the scriptural account of 

 Christ's interment, than that of the place, where the super- 

 stitious Helena caused to be erected the "church of the 

 Holy Sepulchre." The cemeteries of the ancients were 

 universally excluded from the precincts of their cities. These 

 tombs are without the walls of both the ancient and modern 

 <5ity. The place where the church of the Holy Sepulchre 

 stands, is within the walls of the present, and was within the 

 walls of the old city. It is extremely probable, that the re- 

 port of the tomb of Christ being where the church now is, 

 was one of the " pious frauds," of the Catholics, invented for 

 some reason unknown to us. 



17. "North of Jerusalem." A light gray hornstonej 

 fracture splintery, traaslueent at the edges, yields fire copi- 



