Palestine Exploration Fund.

pottery , for the most part rather fragmentary , and pieces of iridescent glass ; while a long table at the end sustains a variety of ordinary-looking potsherds , interspersed with some of the coarse and common-looking silver and gold work of the

modern Syrians . But when it is remembered that much of this apparent rubbish comes from the deep foundations of the " City of God "—from the levels where David and Solomon ivalked and

the workmen of Hiram laboured—an extraordinary interest arises from the contemplation of the display . The bottom of the Birltet Israil , or Pool of Bethesda , also contributes to the collection , as well as the wall of Ophel and the Tvropcean

Valley ; and at the foot of the S . E . angle of the Great Rampart , which now sustains the mosques of Omar and Aksa , have been unveiled stones bearing letters incised with a chisel , or painted in red . These have been studied by Mr . Deutsch

, and declared to be the construction marks of the Phcenician masons who built the temple . They are assuredly of immense antiquity , and no doubt they represent the actual memoranda of the stonelayers of Tyre and Sidon , " who took the contract "

from Solomon the King to build his temple . From similar mines of archa 5 ological wealth Bro . Lieut . Warren sends us in this exhibition the various finds hitherto exhumed .

The treasure-trove is , of course , of different epochs and very varying importance . There is a square brick from beneath the hill of Ophel which is kiln-baked , and comes from the city as it existed at and before the time of Christ . By the

side of that relic are deposited three or four balista balls , roughly chipped out of stone , and weighing from five to fifteen pounds , Avhich were found in the debris of the Tyropoean , and most probably were flung into the city by the besieging

army of Titus . Near the antique ammunition is a Jewish weight , elaborately carved with arabesques , also of stone . The owner of the article may have been brought before King Solomon for cheating in the matter of " shekels" and " cabs ; " and this very specimen may have suggested the monition , " a false balance is abomination to the Lord . " A

fragment of mortar and concrete from the bottom of the Pool of Bethesda , shows that the water was artificially contained in that receptacle ; if , indeed , the Birlcet Israil be the same . We come up to Saracenic times , looking at the bright green and blue encaustic tiles of the Haram ; and we go down again to remote days—the days signalised by the

mighty men of valour who followed the kings of Judah—in beholding the boss of a shield , worked in bronze , which was " got'' forty feet underground at "Robinson ' s arch . " From the same spot , as also from many others in the subterranean

workings , have been sent a large number of tiny earthenware lamps , which are all ranged together One glance at these from an eye accustomed to the East recognises them as identical with the Arab assiraj which is used so widely to burn oil . They

are little pear-shaped flatted things , the like of which , almost to a tool-mark you can buy in Nazareth at the rate of three for a piastre ; yet they may very well be ancient , for the East is conservative in all its arts . Mr . Vaux , we believe , of the

British Museum , pronounces the major part of them to be of about the date 150 B . C . ; and doubtless it ivas just such a domestic article which met the eye of Him who told the parable of the wise and foolish virgins , and counselled all to have their

" loins girded and their lamps burning . " There is , however , much more noticeable pottery among the cases . Bro . Lieut . Warren and his party send us from the vaults below the area of the Great

Mosque some fragments of pitchers and cups which are thought to be true Phoenician . They are singularly like the ceramic ware of the Kabyles in Algeria as regards colour and ornamentation , but the reds and yellows upon them are the natural earth-dyes of all potters , and the lozenge patterns those also ivhich are the easiest to make . None

of the articles are perfect enough * to allow of a judgment from their shape , which is a surer guide than colour or pattern in ancient earthenware . Along with these , however , are some very pretty and neatly-finished lecythi of an unique form ,

which , although very simple , are perfectly true in design , and are rendered positively elegant by their correct shape . There is an especially striking round-bellied vessel from "Robinson's Arch , " discovered at seventy-two feet beloAv the surface ,

of dark red clay , and almost as thin as biscuit china . It may have held the " fine flour mingled with oil , " or the " drink offering of ivine , the fourth part of a bin , " presented when " Kore , the son of Imnah the Levite , was porter toward the East ,

over tbe precious offerings , " in the reign of Hezeldah . With these are mingled some curious little jars of a more primitive type—believed to be Sidonian—though , as they are of exactly the same shade of coloui-, and made apparently of the same clay , they may , as likely as not , have been Jewish