252 Dr. Faraday's Experimental Researches in Electricity. 



the buildings of the city- But Heet is 128 miles to the N.W. 

 of it, and from the intervening country have been obtained 

 the lime and gypsum employed on them. (Rich, i. 64-.; Buck- 

 ingham, 453.) The Delta surely did not extend to Heet. 

 But if Heet had not existence or were inaccessible about the 

 birth of Peleg, will the same be said of Kerkook, where are 

 the next nearest pools of bitumen, (Rich, i. Memor. 63.) about 

 196 miles in a line to the N. and beyond two ridges of moun- 

 tains (Buckingham, 335, &c.) ? or again, of Arbela, about 46 

 such miles further north*, near which place, says Strabo, 

 (lib. vi. 741.) there is a fountain of naphtha, and not noticing 

 any other product, mentions with this bituminous fountain a 

 cypress grove. 



Upon the whole, then, whether we place the abode of Noah 

 in the southern part of Mesopotamia or Palestine, in either 

 of the parts which have been assigned for it there was bitu- 

 men if it were needed : a motive at that age for seeking a 

 substitute: "pitch trees" would thus be unknown. The cypress, 

 of all woods the most suitable, was afforded for his ark; in par- 

 ticular, Babylonia seems to have offered none other; the 

 name suggests it: and then, if the ark must have remained in 

 the same place throughout the cataclysm, and was built where 

 that left it, even the site of Babylon might have been the spot, 

 for any impediment the waters of the gulf could offer to the 

 builder or the waters of the rivers, that, as to them, would 

 not equally apply to the settlements of Nimrod, which, like 

 Nineveh, grew to be cities, for their place is, and especially 

 in the East, where Nineveh was, by the side of a river. 

 I am, yours, &c. 

 May 1834. W. G. CARTER. 



XXXVII. Experimental Researches in Electricity. — Seventh 

 Series. By Michael Faraday, D.C.L. F.R.S. Eullerian 

 Prof. Chem. Royal Institution, Corr. Mcmb. Royal and Imp. 

 Acadd. of Sciences, Paris, Petersburgh, Florence, Copenhagen, 

 Berlin, Sfc. 



[Continued from p. 181.] 



^[ vi. On the primary or secondary Character of' the Bodies 

 evolved at the Electrodes. 



742. "DEFORE the volta-elecirometer could be employed 



■"■* in determining, as a general law, the constancy of 



electro-decomposition, it became necessary to examine a di- 



* D'Anville, indeed, makes Arbela due E. from Mousul, and equidistant 

 with it from the gulf. 



