a new bore to the Pool of Siloam, which Mr. Wil- liams thinks was the Lower Pool of Isa. xxii, 9, 11. Schvvarz (Palest, p. "iGG) likewise confounds the lower spring of Gihon with Siloam. This latter, he says, has the same peculiar qualities as the water of a cis- tern found between the castle of David and the Tem- ple Mount, showing the course of the now closed up- per fount of Gihon. From the terms of the first pas- sage in which Gihon is mentioned (1 Kings i, 33, 38, 45), it is evident it was at a lower level than the city — "Bring him down (DPll'^H) upon (hv) Gihon" — "They are come up (^!^"|^) from thence." With this agrees a later mention (2 Chron. xxxiii, 14), where it is called " Gihon-in-the-valley," the word rendered valley l)eing naclial (^H3). In this latter place Gihon is named to designate the direction of the wall built by Manasseh — "outside the city of David, on the west of [rather to b] Gihon-in-the-valle}' to the entrance of the fish-gate." It is not stated in any of the above passages that Gihon was a spring; but the only re- maining place in which it is mentioned suggests that idea, or at least that it had given its name to some water^ — " Ilezekiah also stopped the upper source or issue (X^l^a, from XiJ^, to rush forth; incorrectly 'water-course' in A.V.) of the waters of Gihon" (2 Chron. xxxii, 30). If the place to which Solomon was brought down on the king's mule was Gihon-in- the-vallej' — and from the terms above noticed it seems probable that it was — then the "upper source" would be some distance awaj', and at a higher level. « Jose- phus also speaks of water brought to the tower of Hip- picus (ir«r, V, 7, 3), which could only have come from the west. The following are therefore the views propounded as to its real import and locality : (1) Some affirm that Gihon was the ancient name of the valley of Jehoshaphat, and that it is compounded of the words N"^5, " a valley," and "n, " beauty." The fountain of the Virgin, which rises at the bottom of the valley, had originally flowed into the brook Kidron, but was artificially carried by a conduit across the ridge of Sion (?) to the Pool of Siloam. This was the lower water-course of Gihon. More to the north was an- ciently another spring, called the upper water-course of Gihon, which was stopped or sealed in the time of Ilezekiah, and conveyed to the west side of the city of David (Lewin, Jerusalem, p. 11 sq.). It will be seen that in this theory the " city of David" is iden- tified with Moriah. (2) Others think that Gihon was the old name of the Tyropoean valley ; that the Pool of Siloam was the " lower Gihon ;" and that the "up- per Gihon" was only the table-land north of the Da- mascus gate (Williams, IIoli/ City, i, 124, supplement). (3) Others hold that Gihon was a name sometimes given to the valley of Hinnom, and that the "up- per outflow" was at the head of that valley west of the city (Robinson, B. R. i, 34G). (4) An English en- gineer, recently sent out to survey the waters of Je- rusalem, has reported that there is not, and from the position of the city and the character of the strata there could not be, wny perennial fountain in or around Jerusalem. Tiie so-called Fountain of the Virgin, he says, is supplied by the leakage from the great cisterns under the Temple area ; and the peculiar taste of its water is occasioned by stagnation and filth (MS. Re- port). If this be so, then Gihon could neither be a fountain nor a perennial stream. The results of this examination of authorities may be thus stated. The upper fountain of Gihon was in the head of the valle_y of Hinnom, and a stream from it ran down tlirough that valle}'. The fountain was covered by Hezekiah, and the water brought into the city of David by a con- cealed channel, partly hewn in the rock. There was an "upper" and a "lower" pool in this vallej'. A close examination of the place tends to confirm these views. No fountain has yet been discovered, nor could
it be without extensive excavations ; but a section of an old aqueduct was laid bare when sinking the foun- dations of the new church on the northern summit of Zion. It was twenty feet beneath the surface, in places excavated in the rock, and its direction was from west to east (Bartlett, Walks about Jerusalem p. 84). This may be a portion of Hezekiah's aqueduct from Gihon ; and it may have carried the water to the Temple area as well as to Zion. In the valley of Hin- nom are still two great " pools ;" one at its head, call- ed Birket el-3IamiUa ; another west of the present Sion gate in the bottom of the glen, called Birket es- Sultan. The fountain or rivulet in question is doubt- less a part of the aqueduct system of Jerusalem, all of it probably traceable to the supply from the pools of Solomon at Bethlehem. — Kitto, s. v. ; Smith, s. v. See Jerusalem.