330 Baron Cuvicr's Lectures on the Natural Sciences. 



rock the ceiling of these excavations; but in the edifices which 

 rise above ground, similarity of form cannot be determined by 

 the use of the same materials. In Assyria, in place of granite 

 or syenite, brick alone was in use ; and yet, from the little that 

 remains to us of the religious monuments of that country, we 

 see that their great architectural forms were the same as in In- 

 dia or Egypt. 



The three nations had also a similarity in their geographical 

 position, all of them having established themselves in the vici- 

 nity of great rivers, in countries where internal navigation was 

 favoured by numerous natural canals. The history of the Indians 

 discloses them to us at first in the great plains of the Ganges, and 

 having only some colonies on the banks of the Indus, — the Ba- 

 bylonians settled in the delta of the Euphrates, — the Egyptians 

 along the Nile. The three countries were in the route of an 

 immense commerce, which rehgion covered with its protection. 

 There was not, in fact, a sacred edifice among them, that had 

 not a part intended for lodging merchandise, a kind of caravan- 

 sera. 



Although the mode of communication adopted during the 

 whole of the rehgious period was by no means favourable to the 

 progress of the human intellect, it is probable that the sciences, 

 in the three countries that must be looked upon as their cradle, 

 would have attained a high degree of perfection, had they not 

 been repeatedly arrested by the irruption of barbarians. 



The countries inhabited by the Babylonians, the Chinese, 

 and the Indians, form a rich girdle around a vast region, com- 

 posed for a great part of elevated sandy plains, adapted solely 

 for pastoral tribes. These ti'ibes can never arrive at the same 

 degree of civilization as agricultural nations, and still less can 

 they attain that of commercial nations ; but they are sober, coura- 

 geous, active, have little attachment to the soil, are eminently 

 qualified for conqueiing, and are ready, whenever an enter- 

 prising chief presents himself, to rush in multitudinous bands 

 upon their rich neighbours. History shews us in all ages the ci- 

 vilized nations sometimes repelling the pastoral nations, and 

 sometimes subjugated by them. China has been repeatedly in- 

 vaded and subdued by the Tartars, India by the Mongols, Ba- 

 bylonia by the Assyrians, and at a later period by the Persians. 



