Major Conder says that the general impression resulting from an examination of the conduit is that it was the work of a people whose knowledge of engineering was rudimentary. It is well known that in mining it is very difficult to induce the excavator to keep in a truly straight line, the tendency being to diverge very rapidly to one side. It is possible that this is the real reason of the crooked run of the canal; but another reason may have been the comparative hardness of the strata met in mining at a uniform level through a hill, with beds having a considerable dip. It will, however, be observed, that, after passing the shaft, the direction of the tunnel changes to a line more truly directed on the Virgin’s Fountain. The excavators from the Siloam end became aware, probably by the impossibility of seeing a light at the head of the mine, when standing at the mouth of the tunnel, that they were not going straight, and the only means they had of correcting the error consisted in making a shaft up to the surface to see where they had got to. After ascertaining this they went straight for about 140 feet, and then diverged gradually to the left; but their general direction, nevertheless, agrees roughly with that of the rock contour, which may be due to following a particular seam of rock. [Illustration: SHAFTS DISCOVERED AT THE VIRGIN’S FOUNTAIN. (_By favour of the Palestine Exploration Fund._)] It is recognised by Colonel Warren that the tunnel running southward to the Pool of Siloam was not the first tunnel excavated in connection with the Virgin’s Fountain. A channel had previously been made from the Virgin’s Fountain due west, for a distance of 67 feet, into the heart of the hill, and there communicated by a shaft and corridors with the surface. When the longer tunnel came to be made the engineers wisely availed themselves of the channel already existing, and began their new excavation at a distance of 50 feet from the Virgin’s Fount. The priority of the channel running due west to the shaft appears to be undoubted; and it is clear that whatever mistakes of direction might be made by unscientific engineers when they had got some distance into the hill, they never would _begin_ by working due west from the Virgin’s Fount when their object was to make a channel south-south-west to Siloam Pool.