42S Dr. Beke oti the Alluvia of Babylonia and Chalda:a. 



With all due deference to the opinions expressed by Mr. 

 Ainsworth, and with a full consciousness of the great advan- 

 tages which he has derived from an actual acquaintance with 

 the localities in question, I will here merely raise one princi- 

 pal objection to the conclusion come to by him as to the ad- 

 vance of the land since the Noachian deluge being no more 

 than 70 miles, from the circumstance that one of the main 

 grounds for his thus restricting it, is the asswnptioji, in the very 

 outset of his arguments*, that the site of Babylon is actually 

 identical with that of the tower of Babel; an assumption 

 which leads him into difficulties not easily to be surmounted. 

 I will briefly explain how this is. 



Mr. Ainsworth states as the result of his observations, that 

 " the last of the deposits by transport that is met with in that 

 portion of the basin of the Euphrates which presents a rocky 

 soil, is at a very short distance to the south of Hilf", and 

 that " the limits of the alluvia are met with to the north in 

 low hills and undulating land of tertiary rock formations, 

 which advance to the banks of Euphrates at Mesjid Sanda- 

 biyah, across the river about eight miles above Feh'ijah or 

 Anbar, and at the Pylae of Xenophon rise in low hills above 

 the plain of Babylonia, and towards Tigris are lost in the 

 plains traversed by the Median wall J." This is, in fact, 

 giving the tract of country actually formed by the alluvial 

 deposits of the river almost the very same extent northward 

 (/. e. above 70 miles to the northward of the ruins of Ba- 

 bylon, )as is conjecturally laid down in the map prefixed to my 

 " Origines Biblicaj." Further, the western and eastern limits 

 attributed by Mr. Ainsworth to these alluvia § apparently 

 approach also very nearly to the limits given to them in 

 my map ||." 



• p. 104. t pp. 103, 104. X pp. 112, 113. § p. 113. 



II The two severest and most detailed critiques of my Origines BibliccB 

 are from the pens of the well-known rationalist Dr. Paulus, in the Heidel- 

 bergcr Jahrbucher for January 1835 (new scries, vol. ii. pp. 43 — 61), 

 and the Rev. H. H. Milman in the Quarterly Review for November 1834 

 (vol. lii. pp. 496 — 519). Both these writers defend the traditional identi- 

 fication of Babylon with Babel ! The latter says (p. 504), with reference 

 to the above subject, " Mr. Beke's is the first attempt to reconstruct 

 history on the principles of the young science of geology; but if historical 

 speculation allies itself with science, it must submit to all the severe rules 

 of scientific disquisition. It must take nothing for granted ; it must not 

 be contented with sketching on a map the probable line of coast which 

 it may choose to assign to the Persian Gulf or any other body of water. 

 It must not only enlarge, if necessary, the borders of the received chrono- 

 logy, but be in possession of accurate geological information as to the 

 nature of the dry land which it thus converts into sea. When Mr. Lyell, 

 or some other equally observant and highly gifted geologist, shall have sur- 



