346 Descruption 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, tillit shall 

 hear the sound of the archangel's trump, calling it to life 

 immortal. Here, too, were entombed Isaac and Rebekah, 

 Leah and Jacob. What a company 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 see 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- 

 stantino." Over the cave, where the patriarchs were in- 

 terred, St. Helena, travellers inform us, erected a magnifi- 

 cent church.- From the walls of one of these edifices, and, 

 probably from the former, Mr. Fisk took the above speci- 

 men. 



29 " 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 quarrj'. 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 ob- 

 servation of several travellers in Egypt, Greece, and Pales- 

 tine. It appears, that the feldspar of the granite, is aflfected 

 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 

 Grecian 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 ruins of which the 

 specimen was taken,— a town, blessed by being the resi- 

 dence of the Saviour, during most of the period of his min- 



