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Higher up, under Wilson’s arch, the depth of the shaft till the 
rock is reached is 53 feet. At 50 feet 9 inches the base course of 
the Haram wall is let into the rock, and the span of the arches is 
within 6 inches the same as that of Robinson’s arch. 
In the centre of the city the accumulation of debris is scarcely 
less. In Muristan the shaft was sunk 70 feet before the rock was 
reached ; and some years since the foundation for the English 
Church on Mount Zion was sunk for to a depth of 40 feet, when 
the arch of an old aqueduct was struck. 
When, however, we get to the north at the Damascus gate, we 
find the foundation of the old wall outside it 10^ feet thick, only 
3 feet beneath the present roadway, which, it must be noted, is 
sunk many feet beneath the surrounding heaps. At the foot of 
this wall, which is very unlike the Temple walls in masonry, a 
Templar’s cross was found, and it is probably the Crusaders’ wall, 
destroyed when they were compelled to leave the city. 
We next come to the water supply. 
The most distant as well as the most important source of the supply 
are Solomon’s pools at Etham, near Bethlehem, now called El Burak. 
These three artificial tanks are well known, being respectively 380, 
423, and 582 feet in length, 236 feet wide, and from 28 to 50 feet 
deep. They are supplied from a subterranean fountain, “ the sealed 
fountain,” three-quarters of a mile to the north-west; from which a 
subterranean passage, leading to the pools of Solomon, has been ex- 
plored by Lieutenant Warren. In the course of his researches he has 
met with traces which lead to the belief that there is another sealed 
fountain yet to be discovered to the south-east, which contributes 
to the supply of the pools, at the head of which is a spring or out- 
flow, carefully concealed in the rock, from which the water rushes 
to the upper pool. There are two lines of aqueduct at different 
levels, the higher one now in ruins, from these cisterns to Beth- 
lehem and Jerusalem. The lower level aqueduct, in which water 
still flows, follows the windings of the hill sides by Bethlehem 
to the valley of Hinnom, which it crosses upon nine low arches 
above the lower pool of Grihon. From hence it sweeps round the 
southern brow of Zion, and enters the city on the side above the 
Tyropoeon, where it can be traced for a short distance, partly hewn 
in the rock, and partly supported on masonry against the side of 
