=8. From Solomon to Hezekiah.=--Between the time of Solomon and Hezekiah, the Bible furnishes us with but little information about Jerusalem. One topographical fact is given us in the narrative of the war between Amaziah of Judah and Jehoash of Israel, before 782 B. C. After Jehoash had been victorious in the battle at Beth-shemesh, he came up to Jerusalem and “brake down the wall of Jerusalem from the gate of Ephraim unto the corner gate, four hundred cubits” (2 Kings 14:13); (see Fig. 304). This wall was afterward repaired by Uzziah, who strengthened it with towers. Indeed, it seems probable that Uzziah’s work was more extensive and that, in order to render the city more impregnable, he added a second wall on the north. Certainly a wall existed here before the Exile, for when Nehemiah rebuilt the walls, this wall joined the temple area at its northwest corner, and we know of no king after Uzziah who would be likely to construct such a defence unless it was Hezekiah. As the city easily withstood the attack of Pekah and Rezin in 735 (Isa. 7:1, ff.), it seems probable that Uzziah was the builder. This wall by whomsoever it was built was in all probability on the line of the so-called “second wall” of Josephus. As to just what its course was we cannot now tell, further than that it started from near the Corner Gate, near where the modern Turkish fortress now stands, and terminated at the temple area. Some have supposed that after leaving the Corner Gate it ran as far northward as the line on which the northern wall of the modern city runs, then eastward from there to a point near the present Damascus Gate, and then turned southward to the temple area. This seems improbable, however, since in the time of Zechariah the tower of Hananel, which stood near the northwest corner of the present area of the Mosque of Omar, was the most northerly point of the city. It is thus possible that this second wall may have run south of the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Its whole course accordingly lies underneath the present city. None of this has been excavated except a short part of the course near the ancient Corner Gate. In 1885, when digging was in progress for the foundations of the Grand New Hotel, just inside the Jaffa Gate and north of the Turkish fortress, a course of large Jewish stones was laid bare which the late Dr. Merrill and others believed to be a part of this second wall. The nature of the digging did not, however, disclose its course for any great distance; the part revealed ran nearly north and south.