SPRING STONE OF ROBINSON’S ARCH.
(By favour of the Palestine Exploration Fund.)
In the Tyropœon Valley.—On the west side of the Haram, about 39 feet from the south-western angle, a great stone is seen projecting from the wall. Dr Robinson, the American traveller, believed it to be the spring-stone of an arch—perhaps the first arch of a bridge going to the Upper City—but others took a different view, and the question could only be settled by excavation. The span of the arch, as deduced from the curve of the spring-stone, should be about 42 feet. At that distance from the wall Warren discovered the pier of the arch, resting on the rock at a depth of 42 feet. It is 12 feet 2 inches in thickness, 52 feet 6 inches in length (the spring-stone above ground is 50 feet) and is constructed of long drafted stones, similar to those in the wall, one of them being over 13 feet in length and weighing ten tons. Three courses of stones were in place on the eastern side and two on the western.
To the west of the pier is a rock-hewn channel, close to the pier, with a perpendicular scarp below the pier of 4 feet; and on the east side of the pier the rock is scarped down nearly perpendicularly for a depth of about 18 feet.
ROBINSON’S ARCH (SECTION.)
(By favour of the Palestine Exploration Fund.)