The Pools of Solomon near the head of _Wady Urtas_ are three in number; they receive the surface drainage of the ground above them and the water of a fine spring known as the Sealed Fountain. The pools have been made by building solid dams of masonry across the valley, and are so arranged that the water from each of the upper ones can be run off into the one immediately below it. The lower pool is constructed in a peculiar manner, which appears to indicate that it was sometimes used as an amphitheatre for naval displays; there are several tiers of seats with steps leading down to them, and the lower portion of the pool, which is much deeper than the upper, could be filled with water by a conduit from one of the other reservoirs.
The “high level aqueduct,” called by the Arabs that of the Unbelievers, is one of the most remarkable works in Palestine. The water was collected in a rock-hewn tunnel 4 miles long, beneath the bed of _Wady Byar_, a valley on the road to Hebron, and thence carried by an aqueduct above the head of the upper Pool of Solomon, where it tapped the waters of the Sealed Fountain. From this point it wound along the hills above the valley of Urtas to the vicinity of Bethlehem, where it crossed the watershed, and then passed over the valley at Rachel’s Tomb by an inverted stone syphon, which was first brought to notice by Mr Macneill, who made an examination of the water supply for the Syria Improvement Committee. The tubular portion is formed by large perforated blocks of stone set in a mass of rubble masonry; the tube is 15 inches in diameter, and the joints, which appear to have been ground, are put together with an extremely hard cement. The last trace of this aqueduct is seen on the Plain of Rephaim, at which point its elevation is sufficient to deliver water at the Jaffa Gate, and so supply the upper portion of the city; but the point at which it entered has never been discovered, unless it is connected in some way with an aqueduct which was found between the Russian convent and the north-west corner of the city wall.
The present supply of water is almost entirely dependent on the collection of the winter rainfall, which is much less than has generally been supposed, as, by a strange mistake, the rain-gauge was formerly read four times higher than it should have been. According to Dr Chaplin’s observations, the average rainfall during the years 1860-64 was 19·86 inches, the maximum being 22·975 inches, and minimum 15·0 inches.