Sil´oam or Shiloah (; ). Neither of these passages affords any clue to the situation of Siloam; but this silence is supplied by Josephus, who makes frequent mention of it as a fountain (De Bell. Jud. v. 4, § 1, 2), and indicates its situation at the mouth of the valley of Tyropoeon, where the fountain, now and long since indicated as that of Siloam, is still found. The pool of Siloam is within and at the mouth of the valley of Tyropoeon, and about eighty paces above its termination is that of Jehoshaphat. The water flows out of a small artificial basin under the cliff, the entrance to which is excavated in the form of an arch, and is immediately received into a larger reservoir, fifty-three feet in length by eighteen feet in width. The water passes out of this reservoir through a channel cut in the rock, which is covered for a short distance; but subsequently it opens and discloses a lively copious stream, which is conducted into an enclosed garden planted with fig-trees. The small upper basin or fountain excavated in the rock is merely the entrance, or rather the termination of a long and narrow subterranean passage beyond, by which the water comes from the Fountain of the Virgin. This has been established beyond dispute by Dr. Robinson, who, with his companion, had the hardihood to crawl through the passage. It is thus proved that the water of both these fountains is the same, though some travelers have pronounced the water of Siloam to be bad, and that of the other fountain good. It has a peculiar taste, sweetish and very slightly brackish, but not at all disagreeable. The most remarkable circumstance is the ebb and flow of the waters, which, although often mentioned as a characteristic of Siloam, must belong equally to both fountains. Dr. Robinson himself witnessed this phenomenon in the fountain of the Virgin, where the water rose in five minutes one foot in the reservoir, and in another five minutes sunk to its former level. The intervals and the extent of the flow and ebb in this and the fountain of Siloam, vary with the season; but the fact, though it has not yet been accounted for, is beyond dispute.
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John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
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