standing abound, like Euphrates and like Jordan in the time of harvest. He maketh the doctrine of knowledge appear as the light, and as Gihon in the time of vintage." Ecclus. xxiv. 25, 26.

The Pison has been supposed to be the Phasis, from the resemblance of the names. But the true Phasis rises in the northern range of Caucasus, between the Euxine and Caspian seas, at too great a distance from the heads of Euphrates and Tigris. For this, Faber substitutes the Absarus of Pliny, or Batoum of modern geographers, which rises in Armenia, and runs into the Euxine sea. Origin of Pagan Idolatry, I. p. 303. But its course, by his map of Eden, appears too short to encompass the whole land of Havilah, supposing, with him, Havilah to denote Colchis, which was famed, in ancient times, for the abundance and excellence of its gold; as Strabo, Appian, Eustathius, and Pliny all attest.

The Araxes seems to have a better claim, which rising in Armenia, runs by a more circuitous course into the Caspian sea, skirting the countries of Colchis and Georgia, which lie between the two seas, and might both have constituted the land of Havilah.

The Gihon has also been supposed to be the ancient Gyndes, from the resemblance of the names. This river, the modern Diala, lies eastward of the Tigris, and, according to Herodotus, rises in the mountains of Matiene, bordering on Armenia, and runs through the country of the Darneans, in its way to join the Tigris. B. I. §. 189. The country which it waters is supposed to be Chusistan, by Faber. I. p. 306. But Major Rennel suspects that the Gyndes, divided into three hundred and sixty channels by Cyrus, was rather the river Mendeli, which descends from the quarter of Mount Zagros, and passes by the country of Derne, probably the Darnea, of Herodotus. D'Anville supposes the river Dainawar to be meant, whose waters descend to Susiana. Rennel, &c. p. 202.

But notwithstanding the uncertainty attached to the rivers Pison and Gihon at present, which is not likely to be removed, the hypothesis which places the Garden of Eden near the springs of the Euphrates and Tigris, in the elevated region of Armenia, is infinitely preferable to the rest. And it is supported by the high geographical authority of our sublime and deep-learned poet, Milton, in his Paradise Lost. When Satan, escaping from

Pandemonium, applied to the archangel Uriel, stationed in the sun, to inform him of the way to the newly-created Earth, and to the abode of man, Uriel shewed him the globe of the earth, and pointed to the spot where Paradise lay; in consequence of which, Satan, following the course of the ecliptic, lights on "Niphates' snowy top," "the Assyrian Mount." B. III. 654742; IV. 126. and thence, proceeds to Paradise, which is described as a hilly region,-" with cedars crowned, above all hills," IV. 131-172; V. 260, 261; XI. 377, 378. "The Assyrian Garden,"-" wide remote from Mount Amara, in Abyssinia, under the Ethiop line, by Nilus' head; supposed by some to be true Paradise." Milton here rejecting the hypothesis of Josephus. IV. 280-285. And he further describes the rise and course of the river which watered the Garden, issuing from the country of Eden.

"Southward, through Eden, went a river large,

Nor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill,
Passed underneath, ingulphed; for God had thrown
That mountain, as his garden mound, high raised
Upon the rapid current, which through veins
Of porous earth, with kindly thirst updrawn,
Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill
Watered the Garden; thence united fell
Down the steep glade, and met the nether flood,
Which from his darksome passage now appears;
And now divided into four main streams
Runs diverse, wand'ring many a famous realm

And country, whereof here needs no account."-IV. 223-235.

And that by "the river large" he meant the Tigris, appears from the parallel passage; when he describes Satan as getting admission into the Garden, through the subterranean course, which lay remotest from the Cherubic watch at the entrance.

Now not, (though sin, not time, first wrought the change)

Where Tigris at the foot of Paradise,

Into a gulph shot underground, till part

Rose up a fountain, by the tree of life.

In with the river sank, and with it rose

Satan, involved in rising mist; then sought
Where to lie hid :".

IX. 69-72.

Milton has here adopted, and applied to his own purpose, with admirable learning and ingenuity, Pliny's account of the Tigris. B. VI. 27. Pliny represents the Tigris as rising in the region of Armenia Major, from a spring in a remarkable

plain, called Elongosine. It runs through the lake Arethusa, and meeting with Mount Taurus, buries itself underground, and rises again on the other side of the mountain," which Strabo mistook for its first rise. Lib. XI. p. 363.

And if we attend to the accounts of modern travellers, there is no country that more strongly resembles the terrestrial paradise than the delightful region of Armenia and Georgia. It is thus described in the memoir of a map of the countries between the Black Sea and the Caspian. P. 46.

"The whole country is so extremely beautiful, that fanciful travellers have imagined that they found here the situation of the original garden of Eden. The hills are covered with forests of oak, ash, beach, chesnuts, walnuts, and elms, encircled with vines, growing perfectly wild, but producing vast quantities of grapes. From these is annually made as much wine as is necessary for the yearly consumption; the remainder are left to rot upon the vines. Cotton grows spontaneously, as well as the finest European fruit-trees. Rice, wheat, millet, hemp, and flax, are raised on the plains, almost without culture. The valleys afford the finest pasturage in the world; the rivers are full of fish; the mountains abound in minerals: and the climate is delicious; so that Nature appears to have lavished on this favoured country, every production that can contribute to the happiness of its inhabitants."

These travellers may be deemed "fanciful," rather for not adducing arguments in support of their opinion, than for their opinion itself, as justly observed by Faber, Vol. I. p. 300.

See also Tournefort's similar description of the country of the Three Churches, at the foot of Mount Ararat, in the following article of the Residence of Noah's Family.

THE UNIVERSAL DELUGE.

When the universal degeneracy and corruption of the primitive world had come to its height, in the tenth generation from Adam, so that only "Noah walked with God, and was found perfect in his generation," God destroyed them all by the waters of a deluge, except Noah and his family, consisting of his wife, his three sons, Japhet, Shem, and Ham, with their wives, eight persons in all; who were miraculously preserved in an ark built according to the divine command and model.

1. "The wood," of which the ark was built, was called "

go

phar," probably cypress; for the radical part of the Greek KUTApɩσσos, namely, kupar, by an easy interchange of kindred letters, may be derived from the Hebrew.

2. The dimensions of the ark were 300 cubits in length, 50 in breadth, and 30 in height, and it consisted of three stories or floors. Reckoning the cubit at 18 inches, it will be found that it must have been of the burden of 42,413 tons. A first rate man of war is between 2200 and 2300 tons; and consequently, the ark had the capacity or stowage of 18 of such ships, the largest in present use, and might carry 20,000 men, with provisions for six months, besides the weight of 1800 cannons, and of all military stores. It was then by much the largest ship ever built. Can we doubt of its being sufficient to contain eight persons, and about 200 or 250 pair of four-footed animals? a number to which, according to Mr. Buffon, all the various distinct species may be reduced, together with all the subsistence necessary for a twelvemonth?

3. The time employed in building the ark was 120 years; as collected from Gen. vi. 3; 1 Pet. iii. 20. And when it was finished, Noah and his family, and all the animals to be preserved, assembled in pairs, male and female, by the divine command, and in the course of a week entered into the ark. And when they were all entered," THE LORD shut him in," or ef fectually closed the outside of the ark *.

And now the deluge began, for “in the same day were all the fountains of the great abyss broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." The same Almighty power which originally drew off the redundancy of the waters, which covered the earth's surface, into the atmosphere, and into the subterraneous caverns, until they subsided to their proper level, now discharged them again upon the earth, until it was entirely covered with the waters of the deluge.

The continuance of the rain was " forty days and nights," or forty entire days, until the atmosphere was drained of its waters; but the eruption of the subterraneous waters lasted for 150 days, until "the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth, and all the high hills, that were under the whole heavens, were covered; fifteen cubits upwards [above the highest] did the waters pre

* This might have been necessary, not only to resist the fury of the waves, but also of the men, perhaps, who might endeavour to force a passage into the ark on the rising of the waters.

vail, and the mountains were covered. Gen. vii. 5-24. Words cannot more forcibly express the universality of the deluge.

From the Mosaic account it is evident, that there were high hills and mountains in existence before the deluge, otherwise they could not be covered thereby. And indeed the sources of rivers, which existed before the deluge, must have lain in such. How unscripturally, then, and how unphilosophically, do our modern geologists reason, De Luc, Wallerius, who allot not more than 50 toises, or fathoms, to the highest Antediluvian hills; or Whitehurst, who reduces them to as many feet! according to Howard, in Thoughts on the structure of the Globe, 1797, p. 529. This is a valuable work, well calculated, in general, to expose the reveries of modern Materialists on the subject, Buffon, Bailly, Hutton, &c.

De Luc, Wallerius, Whitehurst, and Howard himself, all suppose, that before the deluge, the earth's axis was perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic, and that its present obliquity took place at the deluge, which occasioned an alteration of the earth's centre of gravity. Thoughts, &c. p. 524, 540.

But this notion is not warranted either by Scripture or Philosophy; for,

1. At the creation, the two great lights, the sun and moon, were ordained among other uses, to be for signs and for seasons, and for days and for years. Gen. i. 14. But seasons and years are produced by this obliquity, as acknowledged by these geologists themselves; and could not have existed on the former supposition; as is known to the meanest astronomer. If then seasons and years existed before the deluge, so must the obliquity. But that they did, is evident from the history. The duration of time from the creation to the deluge, is measured by the years of the generations of the patriarchs from Adam to Noah. Chap. v. The year, therefore, was an established measure of time, during that period, consisting of 360 days, or 12 months of 30 days; as appears from the rising of the waters of the deluge for 150 days, or five months, and from Noah's stay in the ark for a year and ten days, from the 17th of the second month till the 27th of the same.

And when God promised Noah, that " while the earth remained, seed-time and harvest [or Spring and Autumn] cold and heat, or Winter and Summer, and day and night, should not cease, Gen. viii. 22. plainly signifying, that the world should