Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/554

548 was more probably due to some deed of violence for, unfortunately, we now know that this cave has repeatedly been the scene of horrors that make the heart sick to contemplate. This method of cutting out ashlars was economical of material and it produced very little debris in the quarry. The stones were also cut so nearly of the desired shape that they required little dressing before taking their places in the building. This method of quarrying also agrees with the scriptural account of the precision with which the stones of Solomon's temple were prepared in the quarry.

Although we have now so much evidence of the true nature and great antiquity of this cave, from and after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus it remained unknown for centuries. Its entrance became so covered with the débris which accumulated in the destruction and rebuilding of the city that all knowledge of its position, and even of its existence, became lost until the year 1852, when its only now known entrance was discovered by Dr. J. T. Barclay, an American missionary. Dr. Barclay gives a brief account of his discovery and exploration in his book, 'The City of the Great King,' wherein he estimates the length of the cave at rather more than a quarter of a mile, and its greatest breadth at less than half that distance. His estimate of its length agrees with my own, but Dr. Adler, in the Jewish Quarterly Review, for April, 1896, estimates it at about 1,000 feet. Its position is approximately indicated upon some lately published maps by an outline which shows a length of only about 500 feet, but this representation is too far from the truth to deserve consideration. The distance from the entrance of the cave in the north wall of the city to the south wall of the same is barely 3,000 feet, and by my estimate of the length of the cave it extends considerably more than one third the distance across the city. I am, therefore, of the opinion that it extends beneath the northwest corner of the temple area and consequently beneath the governor's residence, which is closely adjacent.

Sir J. W. Dawson, in his book 'Egypt and Syria' suggests that there was formerly a ramp or sloping tramway, leading from the quarry into the temple area by which stones were taken up to the building site of the temple. Nothing of that kind, however, has ever been discovered and the suggestion does not agree with the statements made by Professor H. Graetz in his 'History of the Jews.' Professor Graetz states that the stones used in the building of the temple were obtained from underground quarries by men who were compelled to labor there. He says that "Eighty thousand of these unhappy beings worked in the stone quarries day and night by the light of lamps. They were under the direction of a man from Biblos (Giblem), who understood the art of hewing heavy blocks from rocks and of giving them the necessary