Jerusalemforms something of an irregular oblong. In the middle of the eastern side, which was one of the longest, rose the temple on mount Moriah. Around the temple lay the city, divided into three parts, built on three hills. Directly behind the temple, in the middle, and due west from it, was the Lower City, on the hill Acra. On the other side south-west from the temple, the Upper City crowned the hill of Zion; north-west lay the New City, on the hill Bezetha; and a small hill, Ophel, lay southward from the temple. Thus it might be said that the city, though of an oblong shape, lay in a crescent round about the temple. Jerusalem stood on a very elevated range of hills; the last eighteen sabbath-days’ journies in approaching it were almost a continued ascent. Only towards the north, joining the New City, there was some level ground, on the other three sides it was surrounded with vallies. On the eastern side, where the temple stood, was the valley, which, from the winter torrent which flowed through it, was called the valley of Kedron. The Upper City was skirted on the south side by the valley Ben-hinnom, where, under some of the last of the kings, children had been burnt to Moloch, at a place called Tophet. On the western side, the valley of Gihon bordered the Upper City, the Lower City, and the New City. Two walls surrounded Jerusalem: one enclosed the Upper City and with it the southern part of the temple; the other began from this, and fortified the Lower City, joining the castle of Baris, which lay above, to the north, near the temple. The New City had at this time no wall. On the first wall were sixty towers, on the second fourteen, each twenty cubits high. The city had twelve gates, the number which Ezekiel had prophesied on the banks of Chebar. But in regard to the position and names of the gates, the instructions of Jehovah by his prophet had been as little attended to as those which he had given in the same passage for the form of the city (which was to have been a regular square) or for the division of the country.[109] Every side was to have had three gates, and each gate the name of one of the twelve tribes, but in rebuilding the city they adopted the names and sites of those which the Chaldeans had destroyed. Footnote 109: Ezek. xlviii. 30.; xlv. In the middle of the eastern side was the Sheep-gate, which led from the valley of Kedron to the temple. At the building of the walls under Nehemiah,[110] the superintendence of it was on this account given to the priests, and when it was ended, they consecrated it with thank-offerings and prayer. Higher up towards the north, but on the same side, was the Fish-gate, leading from the valley of Kedron into the New City, and not far from it the Old-gate, leading from and to the same places. It had its name from the circumstance of its not being destroyed, when the others were razed by the Chaldeans. Footnote 110: Nehem. iii. 1.