THE 



LONDON AND EDINBURGH 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



[THIRD SERIES.] 



JUNE 1835. 



LX 1 1. On the Histoy^ical Evidence of the Advance of the Land 

 upon the Sea at the Head of the Persian Gnlf; with some brief 

 Remarks on the Gopher-wood of Scripture: in Reply to 

 Mr. Carter. By Charles T. Beke, Esq., F.S.A. 



To the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine and Journal, 



Gentlemen, 

 T REGRET that from various causes I should have been 

 ■*• prevented from sooner replying to Mr. Carter's paper con- 

 tained in the number of your Magazine for October last*. 



In consequence of the time which has elapsed since that 

 paper was written, I think it right thus briefly to refer to the 

 original subject of discussion between us. In the number of 

 your Magazine for August ISSSf, I suggested that the word 

 *lpti {gopher) was probably identical with 1^3 {Jcopher) ; and 



as the rneaning of the latter word is "pitch," I inferred that 

 the '^^y^')iV{hatze gopher) of Gen. vi. 14., — in the transla- 

 tions called Gopher-wood, but literally trees of gopher, — werq 

 "pitch-trees." Mr. Carter, in your Magazine for March 1834? f, 

 admits it to be " highly probable" that gopher is, as I suggest, 

 identical with kopher ; but he thinks it very questionable that 

 kopher means " pitch," and he consequently denies my con- 

 clusion that the hatze-gopher were pitch-trees, 



• Vol. V. p. 244. t Vol. iii. p. 103. J Vol. iv. p. 178. 



Tliird Series, Vol. 6. No. 36. June 1835. 3 F 



