264 M. Raiimer's ContrUmt'ion to the Biblical Geography of 



cording to Pallas, in the direction of the Manytsch, and the 

 water-shed between the two seas, at the source of the latter river, 

 was 71 toises, about 400 or 500 feet above the sea of Azof. 



But if we suppose with Pallas, that, in former times, the Cas- 

 pian stood 600 feet higher than at present, it is very probable 

 that the following arrangement of the waters must have existed. 

 From the high lands of Armenia the Pison or Araxes flowed 

 into the Caspian, which was united with the Aral lake ; but the 

 latter communicated with the river-basin of the Irtisch, as well as 

 the low-lying steppes, which are still interspersed with chains of 

 salt lakes, the remnants of a sea formerly extensive and still dry- 

 ing up. The Irtisch leads us to the Icy sea, from which we re- 

 trace our steps by the Petschora and the Dwina to the Wolga*, 

 and so on back to the Caspian ; the lowest water-shed now in- 

 tersected by the canals between the Wolga and Dwina, would, 

 on this supposition of a higher level of the waters, be completely 

 ovei*flowed. 



But this union of waters would have at one period surroiind- 

 ed the Uralian chain, on whose western side, near the Wolga, 

 we have placed the nation of the Chovalissi, who, from the early 

 interpreters, were the inhabitants of the land of Hevilah-f-. 



Diodorus Siculus asserts that the Black Sea and that of Azof 

 were formerly in connexion with the Caspian. They were 

 bounded on the west by Byzantium, till the waters burst through 

 the barrier of the Bosphorus, flowed out into the Mediterranean, 

 and thus separated the Black from the Caspian Sea. At that 

 time this Uralian island, this encompassed land of Hevilah, 

 would have become one continent with the rest of Asia. 



Moses gives the following characteristic of the land of Hevi- 

 lah, that " there we find gold, and the gold of that land is pre- 

 cious, and there is found bedellion and the onyx stone." 



It is not very easy to divine what is to be understood by 

 Bedellion J, yet it agrees with the views of Galen and ^tius, 

 who say that one kind of bedellion Avas Arabic, another Scy- 

 thian^. Our idea of the onyx is just as ill defined, but the 



* The source of the Wolga is only 800 feet above the level of the sea. 



t See V. Hoff. 1. 105. 



+ Rosenmuller u. s. Nil certi de hoc nomine definiri potest. 



§ Travels in the Interior of Russia, undertaken by Erdmann. 



