Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/358

 A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud.ka. I infancy. Thus the distance, in a straight line from the " Pool " l to the Virgin's Fountain, is only 335 metres, but the aqueduct ^ c^ measures 533. It seems strange that when communications were established, they should not have sought to make the height of the tunnel uniform, so as to facilitate its being kept free and in ^ good repair, which must have been dif- 2 ficult at all times. It may be explained, n" perhaps, that the men, weary with the arduous work, mostly performed in an I uncomfortable position, as soon as they I beheld the glittering water flowing out to ^ the smaller pool, were satisfied to rest I from their labour, leaving to others the oj task of perfecting the excavation, which ^ from some cause or other was never 3 accomplished. The difference of level in the bed of c •| the channel is so slight (30 c) that we ^ must suppose the excavators to have been S possessed with some kind of test answer- ^ ing to our air level. The multitudinous g small bends and other irregularities in the I course of the aqueduct, show that the "g miners were unacquainted with accurate 1 instruments. The walls are covered up g to three feet with a thin coating of red 1 cement, very hard, with a large per- ?j centage of pounded pottery. Above this, 2 the cracks and holes in the rock are filled in with the same compound ; curious enough, the fellahîn use it in the present day for lining cisterns. Such rock-cut canals abound in Jeru- salem. Besides that running at the bottom of the Tyropceon, already referred p 1 The larger pool now dry, was connected with the smaller, and probably excavated at the same time as the aqueduct to receive the greater volume of water (2 Kings xx. 20). See also Neh. ii. 16.