Intelligence and Miscellanies. 377 



in the very same direction, conical, and crowned with a cra- 

 ter "• plainly discernible," and the only one visible from Beth- 

 lehem that at all answers this description. 



Your remark on No. 30 gives me the opportunity of say- 

 ing that whoever expects to see a proper pebble from the 

 brook Cedron, i. e. a stone bearing any strong marks of at- 

 trili<»n, will expect in vam. For the gratification of a few 

 friends I would gladly have gathered a few handfuls of such 

 pebbles, bull traversed the whole dry bed of the brook down 

 to the Pool of Siloam and could not find one. The truth is 

 that this bed, above the bridge (near Gethsemane) is so 

 broad and flat as to be regularly ploughed and sown, and 

 below the little quantity of water that passes during the 

 heavy showers of winter is barely sufficient to clear away the 

 rubbish of the city which either falls in from the perpendicu- 

 lar banks or is brought in by the passing of animals and 

 men. The pebbles of Cedron are fragments of pottery. 

 Far below the city, however, the case is different, for here 

 the little insignificant Cedron assumes a more important 

 character, and in making to itself a passage through the 

 mountains to the Dead Sea, it has cut out one of the most 

 frightful chasms I have ever seen. 



On looking over the " Description of Minerals from Pales- 

 tine, by Prof Hall," I am sorry to find from the pen of Mr. 

 Fisk an expression so incautious as that of label No. 6. Mr. 

 F. doubtless had in mind the expression of the Evangelist, 

 (Luke iv. 29.) but contenting himself with a mere allusion 

 instead of a strict quotation^ he has changed the sense of the 

 passage and left an impression about the situation of the 

 " city" of Nazareth, which he would by no means have done 

 had he considered himself as giving a topographical descrip- 

 tion of the place. Luke does not say that Nazareth was 

 huilt on the brow of a hill, much less on that of a precipice, 

 but only that it was built on a " mountain" (foDopws.) The 

 brow or precipice may have been, and probably was, a mile 

 off.* See Jowett's Researches on this particular. 



I have only a word to add with regard to the present box. 

 It contains too little variety to meet your probable expecta- 



* I fear the same author's speculations about the identity of our Savior's 

 sepulchre and about the remarkable " Crypt" on the Mount of Olives, are to 

 be received with equal caution. This Crypt is in no vpay different from the 

 common cisterns of the country for the reception of rain water. 



Vol. XV.— No. 2. 23 



