into contact with the rubbish accumulated inside, which was in such quantities, that I could not without great labour have distinguished the one from the other. As then I cannot conceive this great work undertaken for any other than an important purpose, I believe that it is the vestibule of the Tombs of the Jewish Kings; but of course to establish this we must wait until the rubbish is cleared out of it. It is in the fortress of Sion, the city wherein David dwelt, and no other place in Jerusalem agrees so well with the _data_ of the Bible and Josephus, and with tradition, as this position, which has in its favour every argument derived from the configuration of the ground. I hope to be able to renew my investigations here; but if unhappily I am prevented from carrying my intention into effect, I recommend archæologists to devote themselves to the subject; trusting that in that case they will find that I have directed them to the real tombs of the Jewish Kings on Sion. Let us now consider the 'Coenaculum;' the name of which is derived from the belief that it is the place where our Saviour ate the last Paschal supper with His Apostles. The Bible[768] tells us no more than that it was a large upper-room, but the tradition is of very great antiquity. It asserts that here the Apostles met after the Resurrection, when the Saviour shewed them His wounds; that here He ate before them, and breathed on them that they might receive the Holy Ghost[769]; that here Thomas was convinced[770], and Matthias elected an Apostle[771]; that here the Holy Ghost descended on the day of Pentecost[772], and the first converts were added to the Church by S. Peter[773]. A church must have been erected on this spot at a very early period, for S. Epiphanius[774] says, with reference to Hadrian's journey in Palestine: "He found Jerusalem levelled with the ground, the Temple itself destroyed and trodden under foot, save only a few houses, and a certain small Christian church which had been built upon that spot on which the disciples, after that the Saviour had ascended into heaven, assembled together in the Coenaculum." We read in the Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril[775]: "The Holy Ghost, who spake in the Prophets, and who on the day of Pentecost descended on the Apostles in the form of fiery tongues, here in Jerusalem in the Upper Church of the Apostles." This shews that the church was divided then, as it now is, into two floors. It is not known who built it. Nicephorus Callistus[776], an author of the fourteenth century, attributes it to S. Helena; but Eusebius does not mention it, and the Bordeaux Pilgrim only says: "Continuing along the same road up Mount Sion, you may see the place where was the house of Caiaphas the priest; and to this time the column still remains where they scourged Jesus." S. Jerome[777], in his Itinerary of Paula, writes thus: "The column was shewn there, supporting the portico of a church,