On The Ordnance Survey Of Sinai.

bled must have such a relation to the mountain , -that the people could stand " at the nether part of the Mount" and yet " remove and stand afar off , " and also that they could hear the voice of the Lord Avhen he spake " out of the midst of the fire " and answered Moses " by a voice . "

This condition is perfectly fulfilled at Musa , hardly at all at Serbal : in the former place the people could gather together at the foot of the Ras Sufsafeh , and retire up the slope of the Er Rahah ; in the latter , those in Wady Er Rimm

could not approach the foot of Serbal , and if they moved backwards would lose sight of the summit ; which is moreover so situated that the sound of a voice from it would lose much of its force before

reaching either Wady . Aleyat or Wady Er Rimm . 3 . The summit of the Mount of the Law should be a AvelLdefined peak , visible from the nether part of the Mount as well as from afar off , and easily distinguished as the "top of the Mount "

on which the Lord came down . This is eminently the case with the grand peak of the Ras Sufsafeh ; but it would puzzle any one to select any particular peak in the ridge of Serbal as that on which the Law was given .

There are in truth some ten or twelve peaks varying little in altitude , so little that from a distance the highest peak Avhich stands a little back cannot be distinguished by the eye . The summit also cannot be seen from the foot of the

mountain . 4 th . The mountain should rise precipitously from the place of assembly : in Deut . iv . 11 , the people are said to have stood " under it , " and apparently at the same time to have been able to

see the summit ; it was also a mountain that could be touched . This again applies in a remarkab le manner to the Cliff of Sufsafeh , not at all to Serbal , Avhere , as Ave have seen , the real summit stands back from the face of the mountain .

5 th . The Mount should be sufficiently isolated to allow of the possibility of setting bounds round it . The mass of Jebel Musa is isolated in a very peculiar manner from the mountains round by the two valleys , Wady Leja and Wady Ed Deir ; so

that there would be no difficulty iu marking out a limit beyond which the people should not advance . Serbal , on the contrary , is the culminating point of a great mountain mass , the Avhole of which would have to be enclosed by the bounds as it

would be almost impossible to isolate the summit itself . 6 th . In Deut . ix . 21 , it is said that the brook into which the dust of the golden calf Avas cast " descended out of the Mount , " and it is evident ,

from many passages , that the supply of Avater at Sinai must have been ample . Now at Serbal there is no such stream , but at Musa we find a stream to the present day coming down Wady Shreich , close to Ras Sufsafeh , and

as it Avere out of the very heart of the mountain . It is curious to note that an earlier tradition than that of the present day made this Wady Shreich the route taken by Moses in ascending Sinai , and placed the scene of the Avorship of the golden

calf on a hill near its mouth , close to the place at which the mould is now shown . The modern Aaron ' s mound was at that time the site of Moses '

tent . In water supply , as mentioned before , the Musa district far surpasses that of Serbal , and of any other part of the Peninsula . The arguments in favour of Serbal derived from its name and the occurrence of inscriptions there ,

have been already disposed of , and there only remain those derived from the accounts of Jerome and Eusebius , which are rather confused and can , I think , be easily answered . Another question still remains , that of whether

the Ras Sufsafeh or the summit of Jebel Musa is the actual peak on which the LaAV was given . The actual summit of Musa is not visible from the plain of Er Rahah , and though the peak is precipitous towards the south and oveilooks the Wady Sebaiyeh , the valley is at some distance

from the mountain , is narrow , and the summit can only be seen from a small portion of it . It seems to me that this question is best met by supposing the delivery of the LaAV to have been from the summit of the Ras Sufsafeh , and the

instructions for the Tabernacle , & c , received by Moses during his forty days' retirement , to have been given on Jebel Musa , both peaks being really part of the same mountain . No one can help being struck by the seclusion of the Er Rahah

plain in the inmost recesses of the mountains , and the grandeur of the surrounding scenery ; indeed it might almost seem , like the remarkable place near Shechem where the law Avas ratified , to have been specially made for the use Avhich was afterwards made of it .

MASONIC BAU . S -were given at Gralia-mstowri , Fort Beaufort , and Somerset on ( St . John ' s Day ) .