The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-06-06
KING sOLoMON's MINES,
Which Enriched the Great Temple,
Yielding Again.
From the New York Herald.

From the New York Herald.
King Solomon, in the fourth year of his
reign, began the building of the Temple Of
the House of the Lord. The length Of the
Temple was sixty cubits. And the hight
was thirty cubits and the breadth was
twenty cubits. The Temple was built Of
stone, made ready before it was brought
thther; so that neither hammer nor axe
nor any tool was heard in the house while
it was building.
He built an oracle in the Temple, twenty
cubits long, twenty cubits broad and TWEEN
ty cubits high, and he overlaid it with
gold.
Solomon then overlaid the Temple
within with gold and precious metals. He
made partition of chains before the ora
Gle and overlaid them with gold. And all
the statues and images in the Temple as
well as all the vessels and utensils, were
of precious metals. And after he had fin
ished all the Temple he overlaid the whole
building with gold and precious metals
1 Kings vi and vii.
Strange as it may seem, the same mys-
FERROUS mines from which King Solomon
obtained this fabulous amount of gold,
copper and other precious metals are also
being worked by modern miners! Even
after fully 1900 years these ancient mines
are still yielding precious metal for the
enrichment of man. The sound of blasting
vibrates through the huge hollow vaults,
where, centuries ago, countless thousands
of workers toiled, taking out the gold
that was to emblazon the mighty Temple.
Instead of the faint tinkerings of thou
sands of hammers, the echoes of man.
moth steam drills float up through the
crevices and shafts.
Wonderful, indeed, are these ancient
works that have witnessed the rise and
fall OF empire, and now remain as a mon
ument OF Solomon's great engineering
skill.
They are near the town of Cordova.
Spain. What they were called in ancient
times is unknown, but of the fact that
they were King Solomon's own mines there
is no doubt.
But not alone did he conine himself 10
these particular mines. Some distance
away in Spain, In the northern part of
GalIcta, on the banks of the River Sill
are similar mines that yielded him gold of
the finest quality. The old workings still
remain, but little changed in appearance.
United States Consul J. Harmony in
spected them last month and says that
English companies are now being formed
with large capital to again extract the
gold.
Even to-day" he says, "a compensa-
tive quantity of gold is washed from these
old deposits on the banks of the river
by the local peasant women, who stand
in the shallow places and wash the gold
they have collected in wooden bowls. in
the working of which they have become
experts"
Prof. Alexander Hill, one of the great
est mining experts of the present day,
has carefully examined these mines for
the Spanish government and confirmed
eE~N
by scientists and scholars of ancient re-
search, that these ancient workings were
indeed King Solomons mines
Frot. Hill mas been appointed consulting
engineer OF the mines, and IL is under his
direction that they are now being worked.
The mines" he says, were worked by
the Phoeniclans in 1000 B. c., and 1t was
| here that King Solomon undoubtedly OBJ.
tanned much Of the metal for the temple.
In my Investigations of these ancient
mines discovered many wonderful
things.
LAS we iourneyed down the immense
! gloomy caverns we from time to time
stumbled against water wheels. made OF
| oak, and perfectly preserved The conner
covered the wheels in some Instances an
men thick. 1t must have taken thousands
OF years for this coating to have formed
In this manner.
These wheels. nothing similar to which
mas ever before been discovered, were evil
IDENTITY used by the ancient toilers for rails
ing the water that washed into the tun.
nels and filed the depths below. The
water was raised by a series Of tanks.
one tank being placed above the other un-
vi the surface was reached. There are
| 70 be seen remains OF these tanks still
clinging TO the rough sides Of the walls.
| IN other subterranean vaults we found
| clay lamps that were used by the work.
ers thousands Of years ago to light the
! gloom when they were toilng away I'm
the passages. The lamps were filed with
OIL ana were placed about In the inter.
| Htices OF the rocks.
1t was wonderful to percleve how much
! this ancient people knew about mining /
was astonished to see how systematically
their tunnels and drifts were run. King
Solomon's miners were evidently magnla-
cent engineers, as good as any we have
| az the present day. ana they carried on
their work on the most scientific princi-
/ pies.
Their tunnels we're much the same a.
our own. There was no shoddy work IN
cutting them out Of the living rock. Many