and on the Non-identity of Babylon and Babel. 55 



that " navigation in early society is usually performed in boats 

 made of a single tree," In his answer*, however, that gen- 

 tleman says, " Mr. Beke has here mistaken my meaning. I 

 have not expressed any opinion respecting the general culture 

 and knowledge of mankind at that period. My remark was 

 confined to their navigation only." Under these circumstances 

 I was desirous of avoiding, if possible, anything which might 

 bring us into discussion respecting the state of " early society;" 

 especially as it was manifest, from more than one expression 

 in Mr. Carter's second paper, that his opinion and mine were 

 not at all likely to coincide. But as it is necessary that I 

 should refer to the subject, I must be permitted to say that I 

 do not consider the instance adduced from the evidence of 

 Col. Chesney of the villages of the half-savage residents on 

 the banks of the Euphrates, which are frequently washed away 

 by the stream, as at all analogous to the cities — not merely 

 "inclosed lands," or "small villages," or "little settlements," 

 — of mankind in the post-diluvian ages. As I have in the 

 third chapter of my Origines Biblicce explained at length my 

 views in connexion with this point f, I will merely remark 

 that the nearest analogy to the earliest post-diluvians is pro- 

 bably to be found in the European settlers in the New World, 

 both people having sprung from a previous civilized and arti- 

 ficial state of society. Now we see that even in the tropical 

 portions of the Americas, where they have quite as great a 

 "notion of the value of water" as the inhabitants of the East 

 can possibly have, although for the purposes oi foreign com- 

 merce (which the earliest post-diluvians had not,) they have 

 in some cases fixed upon situations like that of the deadly 

 New Orleans, yet these offsets from the Old World have not, 

 " heedless of all the good reasons to the contrary, chosen for 

 their settlements every such impracticable spot they could 

 find." 



But is there not an entire fallacy in the argument as to the 

 alleged value of water in hot climates ? The value of water in 

 such climates is, properly speaking, principally of an artificial 

 character, arising from the scarcity of that element. In those 

 cases in which it is to be procured in plenty, the general habits 

 of the people show that the real value is not so great as it is in 

 more temperate regions. Of course it is not intended to be 

 denied that water has a considerable real value in the former 

 countries also; but if it be on account of that value (for so I un- 

 derstand Mr. Carter's argument,) that the people dwelling near 



• Lond. and Edinb. Phil. Mag., vol. v. p. 244. 



t See also a paper entitled " Views in Ethnography," &c., published in 

 Jameson's New Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, vol. xviii. pp. 285—296, 

 in which some of my opinions on this topic are yet further elucidated. 



F2 



