Jerusalem
| Jerusalem (the habitation of peace). Jerusalem stands in latitude 31° 46’ 35”
north and longitude 35° 18’ 30” east of Greenwich. It
is 32 miles distant from the sea and 18 from the Jordan, 20 from Hebron
and 36 from Samaria. " In several respects," says Dean Stanley,
"it’s situation is singular among the cities of Palestine.
Its elevation is remarkable; occasioned not from its being on the summit
of one of the numerous hills of Judea, like most of the towns and villages,
but because it is on the edge of one of the highest table-lands of the
country. Hebron indeed is higher still by some hundred feet, and from
the south, accordingly (even from Bethlehem), the approach to Jerusalem
is by a slight descent. But from any other side the ascent is perpetual;
and to the traveller approaching the city from the east or west it must
always have presented the appearance beyond any other capital of the
then known world-we may say beyond any important city that has ever
existed on the earth-of a mountain city; breathing, as compared with
the sultry plains of Jordan, a mountain air; enthroned, as compared
with Jericho or Damascus, Gaza or Tyre, on a mountain fastness."
- S. & P, 170, 1. Jernsalem, if not actually I in the centre of
Palestine, was yet virtually so. "It was on the ridge, the broadest
and most strongly-marked ridge of the backbone of the complicated hills
which extend through the whole country from the plain of Esdraelon to
the desert."
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