or three days-so they tell their friends at home-are enough for the sights of Jerusalem; and these, when seen, scarcely repay the trouble of the visit.

The reason is that the modern English tourist knows too much and too little to profit by his opportunities. He cannot go with the childlike faith of the Russian peasant, and bow with awe and wonder before the reputed sacred sites of Gospel history. It needs but little study to convince him how largely the fixing of these sites depends upon the arbitrary assumptions of an uncritical tradition; and he is apt to be repelled by the confident assertions of his dragoman as to the occurrence at a particular spot of one or another event which, from the nature of the case, must be incapable of identification. On the other hand, he knows too little, because such knowledge of the past history of Jerusalem as he possesses is most often formless and unconnected, and he brings it to bear upon a site of which even the ancient contours have long since disappeared, and lie buried beneath the rubbish of ages, which represents the demolition of city upon city. What he needs is the guidance of some one at once scholar and historian, archæologist and poet; some one in whom the vivid imagination of the artist is tempered by the sane caution of the critic, who has the learning and the acumen to weigh and to appreciate the results of topographical investigation when tried by the information afforded by ancient writers, and at the same time the literary skill to make the past rise again out of the stones and dust, and to kindle in his reader something of his own enthusiasm and interest.

Such a combination of qualities can rarely be realised in a single individual; yet we may claim to find them all in due measure in Prof. George Adam Smith, whose longexpected work on Jerusalem is now before us in two handsome volumes of some 1100 pages. Here we have an ideal guide to the study of ancient Jerusalem. The first volume falls into two books, the former of which deals at length with the topography, and is prefaced by a careful consideration of the geological formation of the site, and the possible influence of earthquakes as affecting the existence or location of the sources of water-supply. In Book II the economic problems and internal administration of ancient Jerusalem are treated in detail; and

the way is thus fully prepared for the history of the city, which forms Book III, occupying the whole of the second volume. In this volume Dr Smith takes us from the Jerusalem of 1400 B.C., as known from the El-Amarna letters, down to the Jerusalem of the New Testament.

But Dr Smith's work, while it stands first, is not the only recent contribution to the literature dealing with the topography and history of ancient Jerusalem. The past year or two have been remarkable for the number of books on the subject which have appeared; and the variety of conflicting opinions which these exhibit serves to show how far students stand removed from a general unanimity upon crucial questions of topography. The reader who takes the pains to work through this mass of literature may well feel bewildered long before he reaches the end of his task, and may doubt whether the available evidence is really sufficient to justify any assurance of opinion upon the questions which come under debate.

Yet the state of affairs is not really so hopeless as it might at first sight appear to be. As regards the main question of debate-the site of the ancient Zion-those who have approached the subject from the standpoint of Biblical scholarship have reached a practical measure of unanimity; and they have on their side many of the most distinguished among modern explorers. Those who take a different view are for the most part men whose interest has been awakened by residence at Jerusalem of some duration and by personal exploration, but who have not gone through a preliminary training in the language and exegesis of the Old Testament. Since these investigators are responsible for many discoveries of ancient remains, it is clear that they possess a strong claim to be heard. Still, it is probably not unfair to conclude that the method of study in which the survey of the site comes prior to a comparison of the Biblical evidence runs the risk of forcing this evidence to fit in with a preconceived theory in face of difficulties which cannot be overlooked by the trained scholar. At any rate, it is certain that among the explorers there does not exist the same measure of unanimity as is found among the scholars.

The site of Jerusalem consists of two hills or promontories running out from the northern plateau, deeply

entrenched to the east, south and west by their surrounding valleys, and divided from each other in ancient times by another valley with steep sides and of a considerable depth. The eastern valley begins in a slight depression to the N.E. of the city, which is known as the Wady ejJôz, and, running S.E. and then due S., it rapidly sinks as it passes between the eastern hill of Jerusalem on the W. and the Jebel et-Tur on the E., inclining finally towards the S.S.W. The main course of this valley is named the Wady Sitti Mariam. On the western side the city is bounded by a valley called the Wady er-Rabâbi. This valley gradually deepens as it runs S., and then, curving eastward, runs nearly due E. and forms the southern boundary of the site, joining the Wady Sitti Mariam to the S.E. The two valleys so united become the Wady en-Nâr, which descends steeply towards the Dead Sea.

The central site thus formed by these two valleys is bisected by a valley called El-Wâd, which begins north of the Damascus gate and runs generally in a southerly direction, but with a crescent-shaped curve, first S.S.E. and then S.S.W. Finally, inclining once more S.S.E., El-Wâd joins the Wady Sitti Mariam near its point of junction with the Wady er-Rabâbi. At the present day El-Wâd is so filled with débris that it appears to be merely an inconsiderable depression running through the heart of the city; but borings which have been made down to the bed-rock prove that originally it had a depth of from twenty to sixty feet below its present level. Several smaller valleys run into El-Wâd from the west, the most important of which starts near the present Jaffa gate and follows the line of David street, but is now so choked up as to be scarcely apparent. Dr Smith describes the site as follows (i, 32):

'The two rocky promontories running south from the plateau, with the valley El-Wâd between them, form the site of the city proper. On the north they merge across its head in the plateau. . . Of the two promontories, that between the Wadies Sitti Mariam and El-Wâd is known, in the topography of Jerusalem, as the East Hill; that between El-Wâd and Er-Rabâbi as the West Hill. The West Hill is the higher and more extended of the two, overlooking, and on the south over-reaching, the end of the other. The two may be roughly likened to a thumb and forefinger pointing