Morning journal and courier., 1880-10-22
Unearthing Ancient Cities.

evening the second in the very valuable series of lectures on that important and interesting field of labor, before the Yale Theological School. The first lecture was given Wednes- day afternoon. Marquand Chapel was crowded last evening, such being the desire to hear of the wonderful discoveries which have resulted from these explorations. And the audience included many noted men of the city. The next in the series occur on Thursday and Friday evenings next. The exercises last evening were opened with the singing of part of the l, 176th hymn, be- ginning Hail to the Lords Annointed, Rev. Dr, Bacon giving the announcement. The singing was finely led by the students of the seminary. Rev. Dr. Merrill opened with reference to the great importance to the theological and Christian world of these ex- plorations. In the rear of the hall was mounted the apparatus for casting the views upon the large screen in front of the audi ence The speaker briefly described Sidon's situation with it's broad bay back of it, its wheat fields and fruit plantations, and pro- ceeded to the gist of his subject, the unearth- ing of ancient cities in the land of Bashan, east or DQ0 OOEudu I1LCCA O1 0"OhOJ 4SS0 below the surface of the ground the explora- tion party came across some very important tombs. They were Phoenician tombs beyond dispute, therefore very ancient. In them were found many valuable articles of different metals, some of glass. Go to the top of Mt. Tabor, beautiful sugarloaf hill Here has been excavated church. The marvel is, how did it get covered up on the top of Tabor? An old castle has also been excavated. Go to old Jerqsalem. It is from ten to ninety feet below the surface of the ground. How in the world did old Jeru- salem get thus covered up? We are won't to hear in travellers descriptions of the Jerusa- lem of to-day such remarks as "Here Jesus walked,'' etc., but the Jerusalem of Christ's time is far below the surface of the ground Go to Gennesareth plain. You ride across that plain. It looks like wheat field. In '76, again in TT, had men digging there They came to yellow earth and stones. It would seem folly to go deeper, but we go deeper and find walls. Now I suspect that Capernaum is buried there. The speaker gave his geographical reasons for his view. There are found the remains of a castle in the vicinity. At any rate, there lies under the surface far down buried town. Look at Settlements excavations in Greece, at
 Mycena and elsewhere. He has done well
 becausehe went deeper than his predecessors. Now how came this accumulation? Instead
 of clearing away the rubbish of old cities
 they simply level off the ruins and build. I
 get an important fact from this. In the Jor-
 dan valley are certain mounds which are arti-
 ficial. There are certain places in the old
 Bashan valley where I would like to set men
 at work. Take Asheroth and other places
 clear back in Jerobroam's time, which think
 may be found. Promising this, begin my
 lecture You will understand that in the
 place in which was set to work the climate
 is very trying. It is very dry and dusty and
 it is difficult to take photographs. Once we
 carried water sixteen miles for our animals
 and the photographer. (Here the lights were
 turned out.) The speaker now exhibited in
 the screen jars and other articles found in the
 excavation work, which were part of the
 furnishing of fine houses of that ancient pc
 riod. The speaker would entitle this lecture
 '"The Cities of Bashan." He now gave
 scenes in Gerash. He began by showing the
 paved Roman road leading to the city. Here
 was triumphal arch forty feet high. It is
 about half mile from the city. In the next
 scene the spectator had got into the city and saw many masses of broken stones,
 back of which arose the ruins of 8 beau
 full temple. In the next theatre that would seat more than twice
 as many as the Carll Opera House in this city
 was shown. From the top of 1t the whole city could have been seen. In the next this
 temple was again shown and the ruins of the
 public forum. Next amid a mass of ruins
 was shown tier of beautiful pillars 20 feet high Evidences of what had been fine houses lay all around. Next came the remains
 of a beautiful temple; it's pillars were 40 feet high Next attention was called to the beau tiful carved work about the many niches met
 with in the same locality; next view of another theatre which would seat several thousand It is impossible to drive your horse through the ruined town so great is the quantity of debris Next more beautiful columns of the ''Temple of the Sum- as was known by the inscription, were shown. Gn one side were 40 columns, on the other 4O and at each end 3O The temple was 100 feet long, 60 wide. There are over 800 columns standing erect in this desolate city. Nothing anywhere but ruins. This was one of the cities of refuge in Ramoth Gilead. How the lava basin is broken up, scanned and serried, was shown. And next lava hill 20 feet high. Some of the Hauran houses were shown. They were from 2to stories high, of stone with stone roofs. The stone windows and doors of these houses were shown. On the doors were imitation knockers something like the English. The doors were of stone, sometimes 6 inches thick and 8 feet high. More windows very nicely orna- mented were shown. Some of the work was evidently of date before the Israelites occupied the country. The ground plan of one of the oldest churches in the world was shown in the town of Ezra. It was an octa- gon. An inscription told him how it was built. A man had a dream which told him to build therchurch and he did so. The Bauran or Bashan architecture was the missing link in the architecture of the East: Specimens of the beauty of the ornamentation everywhere found in Bashan architecture were shown The building material of the tower was lime stone. The ornamentation represented grapes and leaves often.
 Ruins in one of the cities of the Decapolis were shown. Columns 40 or 50 feet high with Corinthian capitals were shown. The remains of bath house, very beautiful building as large as Marquand chapel, was shown, and next the picture of god, which looked, as the speaker said, like the missing link, and something like the 'Frag baby" in the cartoons burlesquing rag money. An mill stone fl inches thick was shown, larger than those shown at Pecks Grand Opera House the previous evening by Prof. Spaulding It was an immense mill stone. Another monster mill stone was shown. In getting it out of the quarry it broke in two. The next scene represented an altar. The operator showed it upside down. The discovery was not made until the speaker corrected it. In Atel were two beautiful temples. Views of some of the were shown. They were in the Corinthian style.
 About 80 miles south of Damascus is Sal chan. The Hebrews lived there. Fine views are afforded. Basalt rocks were shown and a hill 300 feet high, which is an extinct cra- ter, and on top are the ruins of a castle. The castle walls are about 100 feet high. It is capital place for an archeologist to go to. A large view of skull was shown. The speak sr, by secreting them, brought two skulls to America A crack in the skull was shown, which was where the owner of that skull was hit.
 In Sulin are specimens of beautiful Greek some of which were represent ed.
 In going down the hill of Nazareth the speaker weak place in a cactus hedge. He kicked at it to open gap and got one of