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ground."

We find a similar instance of secondary formation mentioned by Xenophon, in his Anabasis, 3, p. 212, who describes, in the following terms, a very large city, which the Ten Thousand passed in their famous retreat: marching, the rest of the day, without disturbance, they came to the river Tigris, "where stood a large uninhabited city, called Larissa," (probably, the Resen, mentioned as a great city, Gen. x. 12.) anciently inhabited by the Medes, the walls of which were 25 "feet broad, and 100 in height, all built of brick, except the plinth, which was built

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of stones, and 20 feet high. The plinth of "the wall was built of polished stone, FULL "OF SHELLS,* &c."

These very casual observations, on the Geology of Mesopotamia, serve to indicate, in a remarkable manner, the general secondary and diluvial nature of the whole surface of that eastern region, which is composed either of

• The great pyramid of Cheops, in Egypt, stands, like the other pyramids of that country, in a plain, composed of calcareous rock. It is formed of lime-stone, of a greyish white colour, and which exhales a fetid odour when broken by a smart blow. Thus we find another instance, of one of the earliest edifices of post-diluvian man, formed of a secondary rock, and standing on a secondary formation.

secondary rocks, or diluvial sands and soils; for the calcareous or chalky character of the rocks, appears evident from the distinct mention of the fossil sea shells contained in some of the few specimens to which the traveller's attention had been attracted. The object, in quoting these extracts, is not with the view of any general information, as to the secondary nature of a great part of Syria, and the regions east of it; as our former general view of those regions tended distinctly to prove that the whole of that part of the continent of Asia, with but few exceptions, was of that secondary character. But as the chalk formation is here described as forming a considerable part of the course of the Euphrates, upon which the primitive Paradise is said to have existed, the subject is thus brought, geologically, to a positive issue.

For if it has been satisfactorily proved, in the course of this treatise, that the chalk formation formed a part of the bed of the antediluvian ocean, and that the chalk basins of geologists must have become eharged with their present diluvial contents at the period of the Deluge, it is an inconsistency, of the most glaring kind, to look for the site of the primitive Paradise upon the surface of a secondary country, then forming the bottom of the sea, as is satisfactorily proved by the nature of its rocks, and

by the marine fossils contained in them; which, like all secondary formations, in other parts of the earth, could only have become habitable dry land, by the interchange of level between the old lands and the ocean, at the period of the Deluge.

No one can, therefore, persist in his search for Paradise, in a country avowedly secondary in its rocks, and diluvial in its sandy deserts, or richer soils, without advocating a theory in Geology still more inconsistent and wild, than has yet been advanced; for as we can trace, over all these regions through which the Tigris and the Euphrates flow, the same monuments of the flood, which are so remarkable in every other quarter of the world, in the form of boundless deserts of sand, mixed with salt and shells, we might as well look for the rich and beautiful regions of our first parents in the plains of America or of Africa, as expect to discover any trace of them on the banks of the river Euphrates.

We thus come to the same point, geologically, which various writers have before reached critically; and we have, in this united evidence, a striking example of what must ever happen, where human reason interferes with the sublime and consistent simplicity of DIVINE REVELA

TION.

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CHAPTER XV.

On the Creation of Mankind.-The Origin of Language.What was the Primitive Language?-High Probability in favour of the Hebrew.-On the Diversity of Colour among Mankind.-Testimony of the Jews on this Subject.-Origin of the American Indians.-Their Traditions and Customs.-Their Religious Belief-Religious Rites in the Interior of Africa.-On Sacrifice.-Traditions and Belief in the Friendly Islands.-Historical Evidence of a common descent from Noah.—On the Identity of Words among the most distant Nations.—On the universal use of a Decimal gradation.-Natural Inference from all these Considerations.

IT may, by some, be looked upon as an inconsistent and uncalled-for departure from the geological enquiries which form the main object of this treatise, to take, in this place, a rapid view of a subject so apparently unconnected with the structure and phenomena of the earth, as the languages, the complexions, the traditions, and the customs of many of the most distant nations. But when we consider, that the design of thus tracing the history of the earth, as recorded by Inspiration, is to oppose those theories of philosophy, which would expand the well-defined periods of the Mosaic History into indefinite periods, during the long lapse of which, both the mineral world, its inhabitants, and its languages, gradually became what we now find them, by the progress of society, in the one case,

and by the mere laws of nature, in the other, without any aid from a Superior Power; it may be readily admitted to be a point of no small importance, in corroboration of the correctness of the views we have now taken of the earth, if we can discover, from an equally general view of the human race, and of their various languages and customs, decisive proof of the recent creation of man, of the still more recent action of the Deluge, and, consequently, of the entire confidence with which we may refer to the Mosaic Record, for a true account of the early events upon the earth.

The evidence which may be adduced of the general origin of all the languages of the globe, when added to the remarkable traditions of the Deluge, which have already been noticed, may serve to confirm, in sceptical minds, the unerring truth of the Sacred Volume, when it announces to us, first, that all mankind have sprung from one pair, created on the sixth and last day of the creation; secondly, that, after upwards of sixteen hundred years of increase over a portion of the then dry land, the whole of that race perished by an awful judgment of the Almighty, excepting one single family; thirdly, that whatever the languages of the antediluvian world might have been, that single family had but one individual language, which

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