stand, of these the diagram gives a transverse section, including the ancient gateway, now walled up, which formerly led up into it. The size of these stones* is enormous, and so far as far as we could judge by the eye, four or five of these arches must have been required to reach the opposite heights of Zion, part of which appears on the right in our sketch. A dense thicket of prickly-pear forms an impervious barrier in this direction, and there are no traces of the foundations of the piers of the bridge discoverable, though they must exist under the immense accumulation of rubbish.

The earliest mention of a bridge from the temple to Zion, is in the account in Josephust of Pompey's attack upon the party of Aristobulus, who retreated into the temple, breaking down the bridge, and obliging him, by thus cutting off all access on the west, to attack it on the north. We can hardly suppose that on a hasty retreat, the beseiged should have been able to demolish such a bridge as this must have been, and we should rather suppose that a wooden one, or a

* Three courses of its stone still remain, of which one is five feet four inches thick, and the others not much less. One of the stones is twenty and a half feet long, another twenty-four and a half feet, and the rest in like proportion. The part of the curve, or arc, which remains, is, of course, but a fragment; but of this fragment, the chord measures twelve feet six inches, the sine eleven feet ten inches, and the cosine three feet ten inches.-ROBINSON.

+ Vide Appendix.

causeway, formed the communication at that period. But this is undoubtedly the same as that across which Titus, after the destruction of the temple, addressed the Jews, who still held out in the upper city of Zion. *

If we refer the masonry around the enclosure of the mosque, with which the bridge appears identical in date, to the time of Solomon, we are in contradiction with the belief, that the principle of the arch was not known in his time, or we are compelled to suppose, that its earliest instance is in the metropolis of a people who have most probably copied their architecture from that of other nations. Is it not more likely that the remains of the ancient wall, connected as they are with the subterranean vaults and gateways, are all of the time of Herod, who rebuilt the temple and its appendages in a style of great splendour, on the site of the old and inferior one of Zerubbabel?

To derive any argument in favour of the stones being of the time of Solomon, from their peculiar bevelled character, is to assume the question; for where are we to find specimens of the architecture of his day to compare them with? It would be more to the purpose to show that they are not, for this reason, of the time of Herod, but how this is to be proved, we are at a loss to conceive.

We throw out these remarks (which we think will be

* Vide Appendix.

confirmed by referring to Josephus's account of the rebuilding by Herod) with hesitation, being unwilling to differ from the learned Dr. Robinson on this or any other point connected with the antiquities of Jerusalem. It would be far more interesting, could we view these stones as relics of the time of Solomon; but considering that the arch was not in use in his day, and that the vaults and gateways within are of a much later date, we are unable to see any evidence to bear out such a supposition. But to whatever age we may refer the erection of the bridge, it undoubtedly existed at the time of the advent of Christ, and formed the communication from the temple courts to Mount Zion; and we want, then, no tradition to assure us that he must often have passed over it. At that time it was often crowded with the wealthy and noble of the land, on their way from the proud palaces of the upper city to the house of God. What a contrast is presented by its present state! the bridge broken down, the Jews shut out from the "holy and beautiful house" of their fathers, and the slopes of Zion hung with mean and ruinous houses, the abodes of poverty and wretchedness.

Not a hundred yards further to the north is a spot, immediately under the wall and quite concealed from observation, where they have purchased permission from the Turks to approach the boundary of the temple, * 19 on the Map.