at Borsippa (probably the Chaldæan Barsip, or Tower of Tongues), which the Talmudists identified with the Tower of Babel. This temple of the "Seven Lights of the Earth" was rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar, who included it within the circuit of Babylon. The dedicatory inscription of that king, lately discovered among the ruins, contains the following passage, as deciphered by Oppert: *— "A former king built it (they reckon forty-two ages), but he did not complete its head. Since a remote time, people had abandoned it, without order expressing their words. Since that time the earthquake and the thunder had dispersed its sun-dried clay, the bricks of the casing had been split, and the earth of the interior had been scattered in heaps." This is a proof that the story is no mere Hebrew tradition. The simple statement of the Bible, that they left off building the city, would naturally suggest a break between the original and the later Babylon, during which the brick buildings would have fallen into ruin through neglect. At all events, such a break exists between the earlier and later history of Babylon in our own knowledge.

That there was some connexion between this event and the diversities of human language and the dispersion of the nations, is clearly stated in the sacred narrative; but this is not assigned as their only cause. It is sufficient confirmation of the account, that the languages of the earth do bear traces of a violent dislocation, as well as of a progressive development; and what remains may be left to the inquiries of Comparative Philology and Ethnography.

* See Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. iii. pp. 1554–5.

COMMON ORIGIN OF MANKIND.

33

CHAPTER IV.

THE DIVISION OF NATIONS.

"GOD, that made the world and all things therein, hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation."--ST. PAUL, in Acts, xvii. 24-26.

"We know what modifies form. Change of latitude, climate, sea-level, conditions of subsistence, conditions of clothing, and so forth, do this; all, or nearly all, such changes being physical. We know too, though in a less degree, what modifies language. New wants gratified by objects with new names, new ideas requiring new terms, increased intercourse between man and man, tribe and tribe, nation and nation, island and island, oasis and oasis, country and country, do this. It is our business to learn from history what does all this."-LATHAM, Comparative Philology, p. 708.

THE COMMON ORIGIN OF MANKIND ATTESTED BY THE POSITIVE STATEMENT OF SCRIPTURE COLLATERAL EVIDENCE OF SCIENCE, ESPECIALLY FROM LANGUAGE—TRIPARTITE ORIGIN OF THE NATIONS-GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEY OF THE LANDS FIRST PEOPLED-CENTRAL POINT IN THE HIGHLANDS OF ARMENIA-THE TRIPLE CONTINENT OF EUROPE, ASIA, AND AFRICA, VIEWED IN ITS PHYSICAL FORMATION-THE NORTHERN PLAIN, THE GREAT DESERT ZONE, THE MOUNTAIN CHAINS, AND THE SUBJACENT COUNTRIES—BASIN OF THE MEDITERRANEAN-OUTLYING PARTS OF THE WORLD-DISTRIBUTION OF THE SEVERAL RACES FROM THE ORIGINAL CENTRE IN ARMENIA THE MOSAIC HISTORY GIVES ONLY THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE PROCESSFORM OF THE RECORD ETHNIC RATHER THAN PERSONAL-THE ARYAN AND SEMITIC LANGUAGES AND RACES CONNECTION OF SHEMITE AND HAMITE RACES-GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE THREE FAMILIES-JAPHETH-HAM-SHEM-LANGUAGES OF THE RESPECTIVE RACESMODERN CLASSIFICATION BY RACES OR VARIETIES OF MANKIND-THE CAUCASIAN-THE TURANIAN-THE NIGRITIAN-THE MALAY-THE AMERICAN-MEANING OF ABORIGINAL TRIBES-CONCLUDING REMARKS.

66

"

In the age before the Flood, the human race had completed its first great experiment. It had failed in the attempt to achieve the end of its creation as a single united people. The time was now come for that further step which had been contemplated from the first in the Divine command-to replenish the earth and subdue it. The process by which this was effected is an object of enquiry only second in interest to the origin of the race; and the enquiry must be pursued in accordance with the principles we have laid down. The Scriptural account must be regarded not as an expression of the crude opinions of an age, though early, yet long subsequent to the division of mankind into races, but as an historical record, derived from the testimony of those who witnessed the process. This testimony is independent of any question about inspiration; but when an inspired teacher like St. Paul makes the same statements with a directly religious object, we have the highest authority for accepting the unity of the species as an

VOL. 1.-3

undoubted fact in the history of man. That the magnificent Caucasian and the debased Hottentot, the noble Red Indian and the woolly Negro, should have sprung from the same stock, may seem incredible to that mere external view which is no safe test of truth. Science may discuss the problem unfettered by the authority, which she will in the end assuredly confirm. Historical criticism will first follow direct testimony, but not without interpreting that testimony by the light of science. The only direct testimony that we possess is the record in the tenth chapter of the Book of Genesis, to which the early traditions of the several nations scarcely add anything possessing the value of an independent authority. The further aid rendered by science consists in the investigation of national affinities and differences, partly by physical characteristics, but chiefly by the test of language. The latter field of enquiry has been cultivated in our own day with the greatest diligence and success; and, after making allowance for certain artificial changes, of which the record has been generally preserved, Comparative Grammar has been established as the surest guide to Comparative Ethnology.

Two facts stand out in the very forefront of the Scriptural account of the division of the nations-that all were derived from the common stock of Noah in three great divisions, having his three sons for their several ancestors; and that, for a long time after the Flood, "the whole earth was of one language and of one speech." That great dislocation of this one speech, of which the memory was preserved in the name of Babel, gave a decisive impulse to the separation, which may, nevertheless, have begun before; and its time is fixed to the age of Peleg, in the fifth generation from Noah (B.c. 2247), whose very name (Peleg sion) commemorated the division.†

= divi

The tripartite descent of all the nations from Shem, Ham, and Japheth, is twice plainly stated: "These are the three sons of Noah, and of them was the whole earth overspread." "These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood."§ Before comparing the list of the nations descended from them with our later knowledge of the peoples of the earth, it is necessary to take a general survey of the lands over which the posterity of Noah's sons began to spread. The highlands of Armenia-for these, in the geography of + Ib. x. 25. + Ib. ix. 19. § Ib. x. 32.

* Genesis, xi. 1.

THE GREAT TRIPARTITE CONTINENT.

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Scripture, are meant by the mountains of Ararat, on which the Ark rested-form at once the most natural centre for the distribution of the human race, and the most convenient station from which to view the tripartite continent of Europe, Africa, and Asia. And at once, in thus naming it, we must insist on a more natural division than that into three continents, which, besides, was by no means uniformly accepted by the ancients. The highland region of Armenia is the central knot of the mountain system which forms the skeleton of Western Asia, and whose chains are connected with the great ranges that stretch through the whole length of Asia and of Europe. North of these ranges a vast expanse of land extends with a general slope down to the Arctic Ocean, intersected by great rivers and covered with forests, swamps, and lakes. It is broken, near the centre, by the transverse chain of the Oural Mountains, and terminates on the north-west in the highlands of Scandinavia. With this portion of the earth's surface history has for a long time little or no concern, though destined to be vastly influenced by causes there at work. It lies apart, the rough cradle of those hardy races which were prepared, through a course of ages, to pour down like another deluge on the effete civilization of the Old World. The centre and southern portions of the triple continent are again subdivided by marked physical characters. A broad belt of sandy desert, on the greater part of which rain never falls, begins on the western shore of Africa, below the parallel of 30° N. latitude, and sweeps across North Africa, Arabia, and Persia, gradually rising up to the table-land of Iran, beyond which it again spreads out into the vast steppes of Tartary, and reaches nearly to the shores of the Yellow Sea. The valley of the Nile, the basin of the Red Sea, and that of the Tigris and Euphrates and the Persian Gulf, are depressions in the surface of this great desert belt, which is also broken by several oases, where springs of water, and sometimes a considerable stream, nourish valleys, whose scanty verdure seems luxuriant by contrast with the wastes around. The part of this great tract which lies east of the Tigris and Euphrates valley, forming the table-land of Iran, is bordered on the north and south by mountain-chains, which run out from the central highlands of Armenia. The northern range, skirting the southern shore of the Caspian, is prolonged eastward to the Indian Caucasus (or Hindoo Koosh), where another great knot is formed. The southern range, skirting the eastern margin of the Tigris valley and the Persian Gulf, ceases on the west side of the Delta of the Indus, whence the transverse chain of the

Soliman Mountains runs up northwards to the Hindoo Koosh. From this new central knot the first chain is continued in the Himalaya and its branches, at the feet of which lie the two great Indian peninsulas and the vast land of China; while another great range, which may be included under the general name of Altai, stretches north-east to the very extremity of the continent, along the margin of the steppes of Western Tartary and of the great northern Siberian plain. These two ranges support between them the great plateau of Mongolia, which forms the north-eastern part of the great desert zone.

The course of the mountain chains west of the Armenian highlands affords a striking example of the influence of physical geography on national character. Two ranges, corresponding to the two already described as running to the east, extend westward along the northern and southern shores of Asia Minor, ending abruptly in the western headlands of that peninsula. Their prolongations are lost amidst the European ranges which, sweeping to the north-west, make room for the basin of the Mediterranean, which is bounded on the east by the chains of Amanus, Lebanon, and the hills that prolong them to the south. The southern shore of the Mediterranean is enclosed along half its extent by the slopes of the giant Atlas, which forms the northern boundary of the Great Desert (the Sahara); and along the eastern half the Desert itself reaches to the sea-shore, except where it is backed up by hills whose terraces slope down to the Mediterranean as in the fair peninsula of Cyrene. Thus the shores of this beautiful inland sea are formed by mountain slopes and deeply-indented peninsulas, enjoying the most delicious climate, and affording the greatest facilities for navigation. It is a remarkable feature of the northern shores of the Mediterranean, that the southern faces of the great mountain chains generally fall abruptly to the sea or the intervening plains, while on the north they descend with a long and gradual slope. Hence the lands on their southern side lie within a small compass, open to the great highway of commerce, and sheltered by the steep mountain walls behind them: while on the other side a vast unmanageable mass of land, exposed to a northern climate, presents far greater obstacles to the progress of civilization. The same is true, though on a larger scale, of the Himalayas as well as of the Alps. In fine, the great chain of Caucasus, backing up the Armenian highlands on the north, and extending westward to the Crimea, encloses, with the opposite mountains of Asia Minor and Thrace, the basin of the