But the latest discovery, which has excited the greatest interest, is that of the inscription in the tunnel which connects the Virgin's Fount with the Pool of Siloam. The exploration of this tunnel, which is about six hundred yards long, involved great danger and difficulty. Colonel, now Sir Charles Warren, gives a most graphic picture of the horrors of his experience. For some distance the passage was only one foot four inches high, and as there was one foot of water, the explorers, who were crawling on their stomachs, naked, were submerged to their chins, having only four inches of breathing-room, with the additional danger of being drowned by the rising of the waters, which does not take place regularly. Often their mouths were under water, and a breath of air could only be obtained by twisting their faces up. To keep a light burning, to take measurements, and make observations under these circumstances was a work of no little difficulty; and yet, after crawling through mud and water for four hours, the honour of finding the inscription was reserved for a naked urchin of the town, who, some years after, announced he had seen writing on the wall. Whereupon Professor Sayce, and Herr Schick, and Doctor Guthe plunge naked into the muddy tunnel with acid solutions, and blotting-paper, and everything necessary to make squeezes, and emerge shivering and triumphant with the most interesting Hebrew inscription that has ever been found in Palestine, about which pamphlets and articles have been written, and scholars have wrangled, but which is now admitted to be as old as the time of Solomon, and it is agreed on all hands that the interpretation thereof is as follows: “Behold the excavation. Now this is the history of the Tunnel. While the excavators were still lifting up the Pick towards each other, and while there were yet three cubits to be broken through, the voice of one called to his neighbour, for there was an excess in the rock on the right. They rose up. They struck on the west of the excavation. They struck, each to meet the other, pick to pick. And there flowed the waters from their outlet to the Pool, for a thousand two hundred cubits, and . . . of a cubit was the height of the rock over the heads of the excavators.” From this it will appear that there were two working-parties, working from opposite ends, and the indefatigable explorers have actually discovered the spot where the “excess” in the rock occurred and where they probably met. Most people who have not got Palestine exploration on the brain will, however, be content to take their word for it without going to see for themselves. Still it cannot be denied that an engineering work, executed in the time of Solomon, and an inscription describing it, is of the greatest interest. The date of the inscription can be determined with tolerable accuracy by a comparison of the letters with those on the Moabite stone and other of the most ancient inscriptions known.