the Land upon the Sea at the Head of the Persian Gulf. 407 



assertion of the facts themselves, may not have committed some 

 error in the reduction into Roman miles of the actual mea- 

 surements reported to him, similar to that which he is shown 

 to have fallen into with respect to Nearchus's statement of 

 the distance from Babylon to the Persian Gulf; in which case, 

 the difference between the two distances of Charax from the 

 sea in the times of Alexander and Pliny respectively, would 

 have to be reduced yet further. But be this as it may, it is 

 indisputable that in Pliny's time so considerable an advance of 

 the land upon the sea had taken place since the period when 

 Charax was first built, as to make it a subject of particular 

 observation, and to call forth from that intelligent and obser- 

 vant investigator of the phaenomena of nature the pointed re- 

 mark, that " in no part of the world had the land gained so 

 largely or so rapidly upon the sea*." 



On the whole, then, the fact of a very considerable advance 

 of the land at the head of the Persian Gulf must be consi- 

 dered as established beyond dispute ; and if the distances men- 

 tioned by Nearchus and Pliny be at all near the truth, and 

 the reduction of them into English miles be calculated even 

 approximately only, we are still enabled to form a tolerable 

 idea of how extensive that advance must have been. In the 

 present state, however, of our information upon the subject, 

 it is advisable that no hasty conclusion be come to as to the 

 precise extent of the advance, to determine which, it will, no 

 doubt, be necessary that extensive local investigation should 

 take pi ace f. 



Still, if these calculations at all approach the truth, the ex- 

 treme probability — not to say more — of my hypothesis, that 

 in the earliest post-diluvian ages the low lands in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Hillah were covered with water, will become yet 

 more apparent ; in which case the site of the tower of Babel, 

 as I have suggested, must necessarily be looked for elsewhere ; 

 and it will follow also that any attempts to identify Nimrod*s 

 Babel with the Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar must be altogether 

 unsuccessful; since, in fact, the erection of the latter city would 

 have been physically impossible until a much later period,— 



* " Nee ulla in parte plus aut celerius profecere terrae fluminibus invectae.'* 

 — Hist. Nat.., lib. vi. cap. xxvii. 



f I trust that considerable information concerning the early geography 

 of the countries under discussion will be derived from the researches of 

 my friend Col. Chesney and the other officers now engaged on the Eu- 

 phrates expedition. Before Col. Chesney's departure I had the satisfac- 

 tion of acquainting him with my opinion as to the physical changes which 

 have taken place in these countries. 



