The Origin of Freemasonry and Knights Templar ... - Lodge Prudentia

FREEMASONRY AND KNIGHTS TEMPLARand more recently Mount Moriah, was, by nature,a narrow, knobby, crooked ridge (of the class familiarlyknown as "hog back"), deeply channeled byravines and gulleys, honeycombed with caves, andin no proper sense fit to be used as the basis of agreat temple. On all sides it fell off rapidly andvery steeply, except from northwest to southeast,the direction in which the ridge ran. The area onthe summit was enlarged by walls built along thedeclivities, the outside wall deep down the valleys,from 100 to 150 feet below the area on whichthe temple buildings stood. One hundred feetagain below this lay the original bed of the brookKedron. The foundations of the temple, therefore,were 250 feet above the deep defiles around. Thisarea, originally built by Solomon and enlarged byHerod, still exists, running on the south along thevalley of Hinnom 1,000 feet and along the Kedron1,500. To transform this unsightly and circumscribedridge into a solid, broad, high and durableplatform was a problem of stupendous magnitudeas great a one, perhaps even greater, than wouldhave been that of making a platform entirely artificial.To illustrate and convey a partial idea of the taskthat devolved upon Hiram and his builders: Goout upon a level plain measure off an;oblong square,i,600 feet by 1,000, equal to thirty-six and a halfacres ;build a wall around it of great stones, eight,ten, twenty, and even forty feet long, and of proportionatebreadth and thickness; bind the foundation-stonesof this wall firmly together with clampsof iron and lead, and in the same manner fastenthem into the native rock that lies below ;raise that46