Here was an important high place (1 Kings iii. 4) where for a time the tabernacle was deposited (2 Chron. i. 3). The present name is El-Jīb; this is a small village about 5 m. N.W. of Jerusalem, standing on an isolated hill above a flat corn valley. The village is famous for its springs, and the reputation seems ancient (cf. 2 Sam. ii. 13; Jer. xli. 12). The principal spring issues from under a cliff on the south-east side of the hill, and the water runs to a reservoir lower down. The sides of the hill are rocky, and remarkable for the regular stratification of the limestone, which gives the hill at a distance the appearance of being terraced. Scattered olive groves surround the place. (R. A. S. M.)
GIBEONITES, the inhabitants of Gibeon, an Amorite or
Hivite stronghold, the modern El-Jīb, 5 m. N.W. from Jerusalem.
According to Joshua xviii. 25 it was one of the cities of Benjamin.
When the Israelites, under Joshua, invaded Canaan, the
Gibeonites by a crafty ruse escaped the fate of Jericho and Ai
and secured protection from the invaders (Joshua ix.). Cheyne
thinks this story the attempt of a later age to explain the long
independence of Gibeon and the use of the Gibeonites as slaves
in Solomon’s temple. An attempt on the part of Saul to exterminate
the clan is mentioned in 2 Sam. xxi., and this slaughter
may possibly be identified with the massacre at Nob recorded
in 1 Sam. xxii. 17-19 (see Ency. Bib. col. 1717). The place is
also associated with the murders of Asahel (2 Sam. ii. 12), Amasa
(2 Sam. xx. 8) and Gedaliah (Jer. xli. 12), and with the wrathful
intervention of Yahweh referred to by Isaiah (xxviii. 21), which
we may identify with the memorable victory of David over the
Philistines recorded in 2 Sam. v. 25 (reading Gibeon for Geba).
Gibeon was the seat of an old Canaanitish sanctuary afterwards
used by the Israelites; it was here that Solomon, immediately
after his coronation, went to consult the oracles and had the
dream in which he chose the gift of wisdom (1 Kings iii.).
GIBRALTAR, a British fortress and crown colony at the western entrance to the Mediterranean. The whole territory is
rather less than 3 m. in length from north to south and varies in
width from 14 to 34 m. Gibraltar is called after Tariq (or Tarik)
ben Zaid, its name being a corruption of Jebel Tariq (Mount
Tariq). Tariq invaded Andalusia in A.D. 711 with an army of
12,000 Arabs and Berbers, and in the last days of July of that year
destroyed the Gothic power in a three days’ fight on the banks of
the river Guadalete near where Jerez de la Frontera now stands.
In order to secure his communications with Africa he ordered
the building of a strong castle upon the Rock, known to the
Romans as Mons Calpe. This work, begun in the year of the great
battle, was completed in 742. It covered a wide area, reaching
from the shores of the bay to a point half-way up the north-western
slope of the rock; here the keep, a massive square
tower, still stands and is known as the Moorish castle.
The Rock itself is about 212 m. in length, and at its northern end rises almost perpendicularly from the strip of flat sandy ground which connects it with the Spanish mainland. At the north end, on the crest of the Rock 1200 ft. above sea-level, is the Rock gun, famous in the great siege. Some six furlongs to the south is the signal station (1255 ft.), through which the names and messages of passing ships are cabled to all parts of the world. Rather less than 34 m. south of the signal station is O’Hara’s Tower (1408 ft.), the highest point of the Rock. South of O’Hara’s Tower the ground falls steeply to Windmill Hill, a fairly even surface about 18 of a sq. m. in area, and sloping from 400 to 300 ft. above the sea-level. South of Windmill Hill are Europa Flats, a wall-like cliff 200 ft. or more in height dividing them. Europa Flats, sloping south, end in cliffs 50 ft. high, which at and around Europa Point plunge straight down into deep water. Europa Point is the most southern point of the Rock, and is distant 1112 nautical miles from the opposite African coast. On Europa Point is the lighthouse in 5° 21′ W. and 36° 6′ 30″ N. On the Mediterranean side the Rock is almost as steep and inaccessible as it is from the north. Below the signal station, at the edge of the Mediterranean, lies Catalan Bay, where there is a little village chiefly inhabited by fishermen and others who make their living upon the waters; but Catalan Bay can only be approached by land from the north or by a tunnel through the Rock from the dockyard; from Catalan Bay to Europa Point the way is barred by impassable cliffs. On the west side of the Rock the slopes are less steep, especially as they near the sea, and on this side lie the town, the Alameda or public gardens, the barracks and the dockyard.
Geology.—The rock of Gibraltar consists, for the most part, of pale grey limestone of compact and sometimes crystalline structure, generally stratified but in places apparently amorphous. Above the limestone are found layers of dark grey-blue shales with intercalated beds of grit, mudstone and limestone. Both limestone and shales are of the Lower Jurassic age. Professors A. C. Ramsay and James Geikie (Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, London, August 1878) found also in the superficial formations of the Rock various features of interest to the students of Pleistocene geology, including massive accumulations of limestone breccia or agglomerate, bone breccias, deposits of calcareous sandstone, raised beaches and loose sands. The oldest of these superficial formations is the limestone breccia of Buena Vista, devoid of fossils and apparently formed under the stress of hard frosts, indicating conditions of climate of great severity. To account for frosts like these, it is suggested that the surface of the Rock must have been raised to an elevation much greater than its present height. In that case Europe and Africa would probably have been connected by an isthmus across some part of the present site of the Straits, and there would have been a wider area of low ground round the base of the Rock. The low ground at this, and probably at a later period, must have been clothed with a rich vegetation, necessary for the support of a varied mammalian fauna, whose remains have been found in the Genista caves. After this there would seem to have been a subsidence to a depth of some
