Page:Buried cities and Bible countries (1891).djvu/217

 PLAN OF JERUSALEM

By favour of the Palestine Exploration Fund.

west, south, and east sides, by ravines more than usually deep and precipitous. These ravines leave the level of the table-land, the one on the west and the other on the north-east of the city, and fall rapidly until they form a junction below its south-east corner. The eastern one—the Valley of the Kedron, commonly called the Valley of Jehoshaphat—runs nearly straight from north to south. But the western one—the Valley of Hinnom—runs south for a time, and then takes a sudden bend to the east until it meets the Valley of Jehoshaphat, after which the two rush off as one to the Dead Sea. How sudden is their descent may be gathered from the fact that the level at the point of junction—about a mile and a quarter from the starting-point of each—is more than 600 feet below that of the upper plateau from which they commenced their descent. Thus