with fable, except that of the turbulent and variable, but eminently distinguished nation descended from ABRAHAM."

The first remarkable occurrence after the flood was the attempt to build the tower of Babel, and this is not omitted in pagan records; Berosus the Chaldee historian, mentions it with the additional circumstances that it was built by giants, who waged war against the gods, and were at length dispersed; and that the edifice was beaten down by a great wind. According to Josephus the building of this tower is also mentioned by Hesbous and by one of the ancient sybils, and also, as Eusebuis informs us, by Abydenus and Eupolemus. The tower of Belus, mentioned by Herodotus, is in all probability the tower of Belus repaired by Belus II. king of Babylon, who is frequently .confounded with Belus the I. or Nimrod. That it was constructed with burnt bricks and bitumen, as asserted by Moses, is attested by Justin, Quintus, Curtius, Vetruvias and other heathen writers, and also by the relation of modern travelers, who have described its ruins.* Sir William Jones says, this event also seems to be record

*The remains of the tower of Babel are still to be seen and are thus described by captain Megnan, in his travels in Chaldea. "At daylight I departed for the ruins with a mind absorbed by the objects which I had seen yesterday. An hour's walk indulged in intense reflection, brought me to the grandest and most gigantic northern mass, on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, and distant about four miles and a half from the eastern suburb of Hillah. It is called by the natives, El Mujellibah, 'the overturned;' also Haroot and Maroot, from the tradition handed down, with little deviation, from time immemorial, that near the foot of the ruin there is a well invisible to mortals, in which those rebellious angels were condemned by God to be hung with their heels upward, until the day of judgment, as a punishment for their wickedness. This solid mound, which I consider, from its situation and magnitude, to be the remains of the tower of Babel (an opinion likewise adopted by that venerable and highly distinguished geographer, major Rennell) is a vast oblong square, composed of kiln-burnt and sun-dried bricks, rising irregularly to the height of one hundred and thirty-nine feet, at the south-west; whence it slopes toward the north-east to a depth of one hundred and ten feet. Its sides face the four cardinal points. I measured them carefully, and the following is the full extent of each face; that to the north along the visible face, is two hundred and seventy-four yards; to the south two hundred and fifty-six yards; to the east two hundred and twenty-six yards; and to the west, two hundred and forty yards.

The summit is an uneven flat, strewed with broken and unbroken bricks, the perfect ones measuring thirteen inches square by three thick. Many exhibited the arrow-headed character, which appeared remarkably fresh. Pottery, bitumen, vitrified and petrified bricks, shells and glass are all equally abundant. The principal ingredients composing this ruin are, doubtless, mud bricks baked in the sun and mixed up with straw. It is not difficult to trace the brick work along each front, particularly at the south-west angle, which is faced by a wall, composed partly of kiln-burnt brick, that in shape exactly resembles a watch tower, or small turret. On its summit there are still considerable traces of erect building; at the western end is a circular mass of solid brick work, sloping toward the top, and rising from a confused heap of rubbish. The chief material forming this fabric appeared similar to that composing the ruin called aker coreff, a mixture of chopped straw, with slime used as cement, and regular layers of unbroken reeds. The base is greatly injured by time and the elements, particularly to the south-east, where it is cloven into a

ed by the ancient Hindoos in two of their puranas. The Mexicans have a tradition that a giant who was saved from the great inundation, Xelhua, surnamed "the Architect," went to Cholula, where he built an artificial hill, in the form of a pyramid; the top of which was to have reached the heavens. It is also stated that the same person had bricks made in the province of Hananalco, and that he had them conveyed to Cholula by a file of men who handed them from one to the other; but that the gods, being incensed at the daring attempt, hurled fire on the pyramid.

The history of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, synchronical with the call of Abraham, is expressly attested by Diodorus Siculus, Solinus, Tacitus and Josephus; and the Dead sea, a bituminous lake, unlike to any other, is a striking corroboration of the recorded judgment on the cities of the plain, which its waters have since filled; and the recent and remarkable discovery that the Jordan before its course was stayed, passed through the plain and flowed into the Red sea, is strikingly illustrative of the scriptural narrative, as colonel Leake, the learned editor of Burchardt's work, has observed, and that fact has since been elucidated by the scientific Leon Laborde, and the evidence is set before us by a chart of the channel, or of the valley through which the Jordan flowed, and which still retains its name El Gher, where the Jordan once flowed, as where it still flows on. The scriptural account of that judgment is, that "the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from heaven;" which we may safely interpret as implying a shower of inflamed sulphur, or nitre. At the same time it is evident, that the whole plain underwent a simultaneous convulsion which seems referable to the consequence of a bituminous explosion. In perfect accordance with this view of the catastrophe, we find the very materials as it were of this awful visitation, still at hand in the neighboring hills; from which they might have been poured down by the agency of thunder storms directed by the hand of offended heaven. Captains Irby and Mangles collected on the southern coast, lumps of nitre and fine sulphur from the size of a nutmeg up to a small hen's egg, which it was evident, from their situation, had been brought down by the rain, and they say, "their great deposit must be sought for in the cliffs." These cliffs, then, were probably swept by the lightnings, and their flaming masses poured in a deluge of fire upon the plain.

deep furrow from top to bottom. The sides of the ruin exhibit hollows, worn partly by the weather, but more generally by the Arabs, who are incessantly digging for bricks, and hunting for antiquities."

As already stated, the Mexicans have among them a tradition which must have had its origin in the destruction of the cities of the plain. According to it, at the close of one of their cycles the world was destroyed by fire, and as the birds alone were able to escape, all men were turned into birds, except one man and woman, who saved themselves in a cave. One of the hieroglyphic paintings of the Dominican monk Pedro de los Rios, already referred to, represents the god of fire, Xiuhteuctli, descending on the earth, and also the man and woman in the cave.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were known to the ancient heathen nations; for Origen informs us that the heathens used to perform their conjurations and magical exploits in the names of these patriarchs, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob being words usually pronounced in their charms. By a recent discovery in the land of Goshen we have a striking illustration of the truth of the Mosaic history of the exaltation of Joseph in Egypt, and the removal of Jacob and his family to that land; for among certain ruins there, an engraving has been found, representing the meeting of an aged man and his eleven sons, one of them a lad, with a personage of high dignity, and accompanied by a number of Egyptians. The strangers have the habiliments of those who travel the desert, and each the indispensable leathern bottle to contain their necessary supply of water upon such a journey. At the bottom of the engraving, there were originally written characters, which unfortunately, are all obliterated with the exception of one word, and that is Iosef.

Mr. Olmsted treats the history of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, and their deliverance from bondage there, as a silly fable utterly unworthy of credit. He says: "Jacob, by his wives and mistresses, had twelve sons, after whom the twelve tribes of Israel are named, he having been called Israel after he wrestled with God and prevailed. One of his sons, Joseph, (and the affecting story of Joseph is familiar with you all,) was sold as a slave, by one of his brethren, to some merchants traveling to Egypt; they sold him to the king of Egypt. By means of his skill in interpreting dreams, he became one of the king's ministers. Anticipating a famine, he purchased and laid up in the king's store-houses large supplies of grain. The famine extending to the land of Canaan, where his father and brethren dwelt, some of them went down to Egypt to purchase a supply of corn. Joseph recognised them, and finally prevailed on the whole family, the old gentleman and all the daughters-in-law, to set