(5) the waters from their outlet to the Pool for the distance of 1000 cubits and (three-fourths?) (6) of a cubit was the height of the rock at the head of the excavation here. The inscription is interesting if only as showing how modern methods of tunnelling were anticipated by these ancient engineers. One gang of men began boring at one end and another gang at the other end, thus advancing till both met, and the failure to make the connection which is spoken of in "the (excess) in the rock on the right" has confirmation in the existence of two "blind alleys" in the tunnel, showing how the borings overlapped. The accuracy with which, aided by the most recent appliances worked by compressed air, the passages through miles of rock have been bored until the men at either end meet face to face in the middle, is among the romantic achievements of modern science. The Samaritan alphabet is the sole surviving lineal descendant of the Phœnician, which in whatever degree the parent of all extant alphabets, became extinct with the decline of Phœnicia herself, and the characters are now recoverable only through the inscriptions of which examples have been given. M. de Rougé's theory of the source of that alphabet, and of the variants to which it has given rise, has not passed unchallenged. It belongs to the class of hypotheses which lend themselves to the straining of facts in their support, and therefore demand evidence amounting to demonstration. The superficial resemblances between the written characters are cited as proof of relation, no play being given to that independence of origin of which numerous examples occur in other branches of human development. In his article on Hieroglyphics in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, Mr. Reginald Poole remarks that "the hieratic forms vary, like all cursive forms of writing, with the hand of each scribe. Consequently, the writers who desire to establish their identity with Phœnician can scarcely avoid straining the evidence." Moreover, the long lapse of time between the materials for comparison invites caution. The _Papyrus Prisse_ is, at least, two thousand years older than the Eshmunazar inscription, and on these two hang the validity of M. de Rougé's theory. Another contention is that certain Semitic letters represent sounds which are peculiar to that language, and for which no equivalent signs could be adopted from the Egyptian, to which, however, the reply is that in the borrowing of characters it suffices to select those representing similar, although not the same, sounds. The objection that the names of the Semitic letters are not those of the hieroglyphs is met by the principle of acrology (see pp. 86, 104). The question is also asked, Why did not the Phœnicians borrow the hieroglyphic instead of the hieratic characters? Mr. Arthur Evans thinks that in some cases this was done, a few of the letters of the Phœnician alphabet coming direct from the pictorial symbols, as _Alpha_