The present Pool of Siloam measures about 55 feet, north and south by 18 feet east and west, and is about 20 feet deep. At the north end an archway, 5 feet wide, appears, leading to a small vault, 12 feet long, in which is a descent from the level of the top of the pool to the level of the channel supplying it. In the year 1880 one of the pupils of Herr Conrad Schick, the architect of the Church Missionary Society, while climbing down fell into the water, and on rising to the surface noticed the appearance of letters on the wall of the rock. The rock had been smoothed so as to form a tablet about 27 inches square, which contains six lines of writing on its lower portion. The inscription is about 5 yards from the mouth of the channel, and is on the right hand of an explorer entering from the Siloam end. It could hardly be read at first, because a deposit of lime had formed over it. Dr Guthe removed this by washing the tablet with a weak solution of hydrochloric acid. Major Conder, with the aid of Lieutenant Mantell, expended much labour and patience in taking a “squeeze,” sitting for three or four hours cramped up in the water in order to obtain a perfect copy, and repeating the experience in order to verify every letter. Conder’s squeezes were the basis of the earliest correct representation published in Europe. Professor Sayce, who had already visited the tunnel and made a provisional translation of the text, was now enabled to improve it; and the following is the translation:-- “1. (Behold the) excavation! Now this is the history of the excavation. While the excavators were still lifting up “2. The pick, each towards his neighbour, and while there were yet three cubits to (excavate, there was heard) the voice of one man “3. Calling to his neighbour, for there was an _excess_ (?) in the rock on the right hand (and on the left?). And after that on the day “4. Of excavating the excavators had struck pick against pick, one against another, “5. The waters flowed from the spring to the pool for a distance of 1200 cubits. And (part) “6. Of a cubit was the height of the rock over the head of the excavators.”[23] The meeting of the two parties of excavators near the middle of the tunnel accords with Warren’s discovery of two false cuttings, one on either side, at a distance of 900 feet from the Siloam end. The inscription is in ancient characters, very much resembling those on the Moabite Stone, but possessing certain peculiarities. It is probably the oldest bit of Hebrew writing on stone that we possess, and opens out a new chapter in the history of the alphabet. It gives the first monumental evidence of the condition of civilisation among the Hebrews in the days of their kings; and altogether it is the most important discovery of the kind since the finding of the Moabite Stone.