and on the Non-identity of Babylon and Babel. 511 
been intended by him (as will be seen from the last note,) to 
apply merely to the rest of the authorities cited by him. Iam 
most happy to be able thus to correct my error. 
As regards these various ‘‘ harmonizing,” “ discrepant ” 
authorities, I even now refrain from considering them in de- 
tail; for it would only needlessly be taking up much room, 
since my remarks would be little more than the continued 
repetition, with respect to each of them individually, of the 
assertion which I make respecting them collectively; namely, 
that Iam unable to see their applicability, either to Pliny’s 
statement as above explained by Mr. Carter, or to the present 
condition of the country. It will not be denied that the gene- 
ral conclusion from them is, that the two rivers in question 
“have, at a very early period, united inland somewhere ;” but 
I cannot conceive by what possible means the further con- 
clusion is to be arrived at from them, that ** Khorna was the 
grand confluence in all ages*;” for the two rivers may, by 
the union of their deltas, have formed a junction at some point 
much further inland, and yet, for ages afterwards, have still 
continued their (in part) separate courses to the sea. 
Among the many writers thus cited by Mr. Carter, is the 
geographer Ptolemy, to whom, however, whilst he quotes the 
particular passages from the other authors which he considers 
applicable, he refers only in general terms. Yet Ptolemy’s 
description of these rivers, and the countries through which 
they flow, is that, perhaps, which is the most important of the 
whole, and which, consequently, requires to be more particu- 
larly considered. ‘The purport of this description appears to 
be as follows: That to the north of Babylon the Euphrates 
divided itself into two streams, whereof the one flowed south- 
ward by that city, and the other eastward past Seleucia: that 
between these two branches of the Euphrates there was a river 
called the Basilius, which, on the one hand, fell into the Ti- 
gris below Apamea, and, on the other hand, joined the main 
stream of the Euphrates flowing past Babylon, at some di- 
stance below that city: that the Euphrates likewise threw off 
an arm called the Baarsares; and that both this arm and also 
the main stream itself, continued their courses southward, and 
divided themselves into several subordinate branches, with 
which they formed lakes and marshes towards the head of the 
Persian Gulft. 
The Alexandrian philosopher’s account must, of course, be 
* How does such a conclusion tally with the notion that the Orcheni 
“united” the two rivers “ simply by the labour of hands”? Did they make 
the junction at Khorna? 
t+ ‘H rov EvQecrov Séois, nab yy oxiCerat sis re trav dice Babuaraavos 
