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1591. [Gen. vi. 14.] Bitumen is a slimy terrene substance, which is still used in the East for pitch; and, in particular, for the purpose of stemming osier barks. A coat of it, spread over both the inside and the outside of an ark of wickerwork, would make it perfectly water-proof and impenetrable: and the longer it were kept in the water, the harder and stronger it would grow.

Dr. GEDDES.

1592. [15, 16.] The Chinese and the Japanese construct their vessels exactly on the model of the ark. 1. They allow them six breadths to their length; whereas other nations allow theirs only three breadths, except only in some small canoes. 2. They build them flat at the head, stern, and bottom; whereas all other nations have them sharp. 3. They commonly give them three tiers, or stories, one over the other, and each of them parted by long galleries reaching almost from end to end, and subdivided into smaller apartments of different sizes; some for storage of merchandizes, provisions, &c. and others for lodgings for passengers, and those that belong to the vessel: all which is likewise exactly according to the structure of the ark, and quite different from all other nations.

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1611. [Gen. vii. 24.] Incipit crescere Nilus novâ lunâ, quæcumque post solstitium est, sensim modiceque Cancrum sole transeunte, abundantissime autem Leonem, et residit in Virgine, iisdem quibus accrescit modis. In totum autem revocatur inter ripas in Librâ, ut tradit HERODOTUS, centesimo die. Auctus ejus per puteos mensuræ notis deprehenduntur. Justum incrementum est cubitorum 16, minores aquæ nou omnia rigaut, ampliores detinent tardius recedendo; hæ serendi tempora absumunt, solo madente; illæ non dant, sitiente utrumque reputat provincia. In 12 cubitis famem sentit, in 13 etiamnum esurit, 14 cubita hilaritatem afferunt, 15 securitatem, 16 delicias. That is, the Nile begins its increase at the first new moon after the solstice; rising slowly but gradually, whilst the sun passes through Cancer; then rapidly indeed, when he is in Leo. It sinks again during Virgo, in the same proportion as it rose. And, under Libra, it is wholly reduced within its banks; generally, as HERODOTUS observes, about the hundredth day from the commencement of its decrease. The progressions of its increase are regularly guaged and marked on nilometers, erected for the purpose in the centre of artificial basins. Its ordinary height is sixteen cubits. Below that elevation, its waters overflow not all the cultivated grounds. Above, they delay the harvest by their tardy recession. In the latter case, seed-time is lost through the wetness of the soil; in the former, nothing will grow because the ground is too dry and thirsty. Thus are both extremes reckoned equally inimical to the province. When the flood rises but 12 cubits, the inhabitants expect famine. At the thirteenth cubit-mark, it indicates a dry season; at the fourteenth, it begins to cheer their hearts; at the fifteenth, it dissipates their cares; and, at the sixteenth, it prognosticates plenty and delicious dainties.

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Egypt, properly so called, which is overflowed by the Nile, and cultivated like a garden, is long, but narrow; extending, by D' Anville's calculation, over the space of but 2100 French, or 800 German square miles. Smith's MICHAELIS, vol. ii. p. 490. note.

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1615. [20.] When they of the Antient Church offered clean beasts and clean fowls, it is to be understood, that they offered gifts to the Lord from their charity and faith; for nothing else can be offered to the Lord, which can be grateful to him. (SWEDENBORG's Arcana, n. 921.) — In the same way Aaron offered, or devoted, to the Lord the Levites and their cattle. See Num. iii. 41. viii. 11,21. See No. 285, 289, 288, 289, 283, 237, 382, 292.

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1618. [4] Chemists observe that vegetables, as lavender, rue, marjorum, &c. distilled per se before fermentation, yield oils without any burning spirits; but that after fermentation, they yield ardent spirits, without oil; which shews, that their oil is, by fermentation, converted into spirit. They also find that, if oil be poured in a small quantity on fermenting vegetables, they distil over, after fermentation, in the form of spirits.

PRIESTLEY'S Hist. of Vision, p. 305.

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1625. [11.] From the town or village of Samaouât the course of the Euphrates is accompanied with a double bank, which descends as far as its junction with the Tigris, and from thence to the sea, being a length of about a hundred leagues French measure. The height of these artificial banks is not uniform, but increases as you advance from the sea; it may be estimated at from twelve to fifteen feet. But for them, the inundation of the river would bury the country around, which is flat, to an extent of twenty or twenty-five

leagues; and even, notwithstanding these banks, there has been in modern times an overflow which has covered the whole triangle formed by the junction of this river to the Tigris, being a space of country of 130 square leagues. By the stagnation of the waters an epidemical disease of the most fatal nature was occasioned. It follows from hence, 1. That all the flat country bordering upon these rivers was originally a marsh; 2. That this marsh could not have been inhabited previously to the construction of the banks in question; 3. That these banks could not have been the work but of a population prior as to date and the elevation of Babylon therefore must have been posterior to that of Nineveh.

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1630.

Dr. A. CLARKE.

Shinar, in after ages, termed successively, from the tower of Babel, Babylon or Babylonia; from Cased, the son of Nahor, Chasdim; and from the Chaldæans, its more modern inhabitants, Chaldæa. It lies in Asia, between 30 and 35 degrees north latitude, being bounded on the north by Mesopotamia, on the east by the Tigris, on the west by Arabia Deserta, and on the south by the Persian Gulf and part of Arabia Felix. During the months of June, July, and August, it is inundated, like Egypt, by the rivers Tigris and Euphrates.

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1636. [8, 9.] It has been supposed that the patriarch Noah, finding his authority too small to deter the greatest part of his descendants, grown by this time too numerous and intractable to be deterred from their presumptuous design of securing themselves [by a pyramidal tower] against the power of Heaven [to destroy them by a deluge of the Euphrates, as the Egyytians had been destroyed by the Nile], wisely separated himself from them; and, taking as many with him as abhorred that impious conspiracy, led them far enough eastwards to be out of the danger of being involved in the punishment which he had cause to fear would quickly fall on those rebellious miscreants; till, by slow and gradual migrations, he at length reached some of the northeru provinces of China.

See No. 398, 403, 298, 394, 401.

1637.

Modern Univer. Hist. vol. viii. p. 323.

In this first dispersion of mankind, it does not appear that they migrated eastward beyond Media, northward beyond the mountains of Caucasus, southward

beyoud Ethiopia or Habashia, or westward beyond a part of Lybia and Greece, including Macedonia. (Univer. Hist. vol. i. p. 373.) — So that the then known world was included within the above boundaries.

1638. [Gen. xi. 28.] Ur, in the Sanscrit, signifies an inhabited place. BARTOLOMEO, by Johnston, p. 427.

1639. [- 30.] The noblest animals are ever the least fruitful: These are seen usually to bring forth but one at a time, and to place all their attention upon that alone. On the other hand, all the oviparous kinds produce in amazing plenty; and even the lower tribes of viviparous animals increase in a seeming proportion to their minuteness and imperfection. GOLDSMITH'S Hist. of the Earth, vol. ii. p. 49.

1640. [31.] Haran, Terah's son's name, beginning with a h (Hebr.), while what has been called Haran, a place, is written with a ch, equivalent to the Greek ch; we have deemed it proper to spell the latter Charan (or Charran). Univer. Hist.

1644. [Gen. xii. 15.] Walid, the first king of Egypt, of the race of Amalek, took the surname of Pharaoh, which in the Coptic Paurro, or Pooro, signifies king, and was used by all his successors. (See RENAUDOT, Dissert. de ling. Coptica. Or CALMET, sub voce Pharaoh. Or Univer. Hist. vol. ii. pp. 72, 359.) As the kings of Egypt were called Pharaoh, the kings of the Philistines were entitled Abimelech. Univer. Hist. vol. v. p. 192,

1645. [———— 16.] He had sheep and oxen, men and maid-servants, he and she-asses, and camels.

HOUBIGANT, according to the Samaritan, The animal that may be called peculiarly Arabian, and is pre-eminently suited to a desert country, from its wonderful capacity of bearing hunger and thirst, is the camel; which, as a beast of burden, forms the true riches of Arabia, and has, on some occasions, made it the central point for the commerce between Asia and Africa, India and the West. STRABO, who lived in the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, much about the era of Christ's appearance, says (p. 1112 or 768) Arabia Felix has neither horses, mules, nor swine; and that Arabia Deserta (p. 1130 or 784) has no horses, and camels supply their place. MICHAELIS conceives, that Persia, as well as Egypt and Armenia, was one among the original countries where the horse was early domesticated. See No. 419, 427, 414, Smith's Michaelis, vol. ii. 416, 509, 876. pp. 503, 505, 513.

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1641. [34.] This Introduction has been divided, perhaps improperly, into eleven Chapters.

See No. 393, 408-413. Works of Sir W. JONES, vol. i. p. 134.

1646. [Gen. xiii. 10.] And Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of Jordan, as thou comest to Zoar, that it was well watered every where; even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. See No. 426, 428, 432.

Essay for a New Translation.

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1647. [Gen. xiv. 1. Elam] The Persians, in the geographical descriptions of their antient empire, fix its boundaries at the Black sea, the Red sea, the Caspian sea, and the Persian gulph; representing the Euphrates, the Araxes, the Tigris, the Phasus, the Oxus aud the Indus, as boldly skirting its intermediate limits. Its present content, according to Sir JOHN CHARDIN, reaching from the 77th to the 112th degree of longitude, and from the 45th to the 25th degree of latitude, embraces about 750 French leagues in length, and about 400 in breadth.

See Chardin, Voy. tom. iii. p. 2.

1648. [3.] The Dead Sea, or Lake Asphaltis, is situated in the southern part of Syria, near Jerusalem, and oc cupies an extent of about 60 or 70 miles in length, and from 10 to 20 in breadth. This lake has been from time

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