The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-11-13

1 very rude, and vary in height from six
 feet to eight feet. They stand embed l ded in the layer of preIsraeite pottery" l If pr. Bliss be right h his description | of this latest discovery as that of Ca naanite high place. it invests Tel-es- l Safi ith the unique interest of possess ing the only known relic of this Kind in Judea.
 The great survey of Western Pales-
 tine by royal engineers in 1S72-'77, and of part of Eastern Palestine in 1SSl-'S2,
 brought to light d very remarkable fact
 relative to these rude stone monuments. Although seven hundred examples were discovered in Eastern Palestine in the
 five hundred square miles surveyed by
 Conder, and although they occur in considerable numbers both north and
 south of Western Palestine, up to the
 present not one has been found in Ju-
 dea Only one doubtful circle has been found in Samaria, and in Lower Cali
 lee but single dolmen is known to ex- ist. West of Tiberlas a circle was found and four dolmens were discovered in
 Upper Galilee. Perhaps the most sat- isfactory explanation of the almost en- tire absence of these monuments from
 the country here the Hebrew power was firmly established is to be found in the following passages from the Old Testament
 "Ye shall surely destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, or shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and ye shall destroy their name out of that place." Deut. xii, 2, 3)
 Now when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah, and brake in pieces the pillars, and hewed down the Ashe- rim, and brake down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Ben jamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh, until they had destroyed them all. GI. Chron. xXxi 1,)
 The reference in this passage is to the reign of Hezekiah, and tht date Is about 720 B. c.
  scription of this high place." we recall the last sentence quoted above. "They stand embedded in a layer of pre-Isra- elite pottery:" Before the days of the reforming kings, the lever of the ground had been considerably raised--and in this border town the rate of rise would probably be fairly high, owing to con quest and reconquest, ruin and restora- tion--so that it is more than probable that this high place" was buried and built over and it's very existence for gotten before the zeal of Hezetiah and | Joshua destroyed every known relic of | this kind. whether Canaanite of He brew, within the limits of authority and influence. The following extracts from the report of the excavations give fur ther details of interest:
 At depth of from eighteen to twen ty feet Cirst given as seventeen feeD were found three upright monolths standing upon footstones, together with the footstones of others, all in situ.
 That these stones were inclosed by walls is clear. In cross section they the monoliths) are irregularly oval the surface being roughly 1iaked 1own They consist of soft limestone, and are so much weathered that no signs of the tool used are left Stone a ,apers to a point stones b and taper slightly, but have comparatively flat ops. The heights of the three stones 1iffer, but their tops are almost in the anne horizontal plane; is five feet ten nches high, cross dimensions thirty1 nches by twenty-four inches; b is six eet five inches high, cross dimensions wenty-seven inches by nineteen inches;
 is seven feet one inch high, cross di- nensicns thirty-one inches by twenty me inches; rests on a roughly pen agonal footstone, measuring twenty our by twenty inches, which stands on
 second similar footstone, set on de- ,ris; b and have but one footstone ach, that under b being roughly rec Between stones and b was ound a row or rough fieldstones, un- 7orn by feet, and above\this, separated rom it by about one foot of debris, a econd row. Between stones and a ias another similar row. about four i, lches higher than the lower of the two \ Ows just mentioned, . Signs of a ubbing were observed on the exposed | urfaces of the monoliths, in one at the E