4 Before Chrifl; 2200 — 1859. 



produce of the adjacent country, and the various articles produced by 

 the labours of their own ingenious and induftrious people, who excelled 

 in the manufadures of fine linen, embroidery, tapeftry, metals, glafs, 

 whereof they appear to have had almoft as many varieties as our mo- 

 dern manufacturers furnifli, fuch as coloured, figured by blowing, turn- 

 ed round by the lath, and cut or carved, and even mirrors. In fhort, 

 they were unrivalled, at leafl by the inhabitants of the Mediterranean 

 coafts, in works of tafte, elegance, and luxury. Their great and uni- 

 verfally-acknowleged pre-eminence procured to the Phoenicians, whofe 

 capital port was Sidon, the honour of being efteemed by the Greeks and 

 others the inventors of commerce, fliip-building, navigation, the appli- 

 cation of aftronomy to nautical purpofes, and particularly the difcovery 

 of feveral ftars nearer to the north pole than any that were known to 

 the other nations, naval war, writing, arithmetic, book-keeping, mea- 

 fures and weights ; to all which it is very probable that they might 

 have added money *. Some of thefe fciences however, particularly af- 

 tronomy and arithmetic, may be prefumed to have been received by 

 the Phoenicians from the Babylonians or Indians. 



An obfervation of an eclipfe, which happened 2155 years before the 

 Chriftian aera, is fuppofed by fome to be the mofl antient of the Chi- 

 nefe obfervations, which can be received as authentic : but others credit 

 them for celeftial obfervations three centuries earlier, as already obferv- 

 ed. [Montucla, Hiji. de mathcmatiques, V. i. pp. 59, 385.] 



2000 — It was probably about this time that the Titans made them- 

 felves mafters of Greece and other parts of Europe. Their hiftory is 

 overwhelmed with fable : and they are noticed here merely as an early 

 inftance of a number of people, fufficient to overrun, and even to fub- 

 due and occupy a great extent of thinly-inhabited country, being tranf- 

 ported by water ; and as a proof, that the navigation of thofe remote 

 ages was not quite fo defpicable, as fome authors endeavour to make us 

 believe f . 



1920 — Egypt appears to have furpafi^ed all the neighbouring coun- 

 tries in agriculture, and particularly to have excelled in its plentiful 

 crops of corn. The fame of its fuperior fertility induced Abraham to 

 remove with his very numerous family into Egypt during a famine, 

 which alBided the land of Canaan, then the place of his refidence. 

 [^Gene/is, c. i 2.] 



1859 — ^^^^ earlicft particular accounts of bargain and fale, which are 

 recorded, reach no higher than the time of Abraham. In the accounts 



• Sec Gentfis, c. 10. — Homerl II. /,. xvili, r. \ The antient authors, who mention them, 



289; L. xxiii, 1). 743 ; OtI'fJf. /.. xv, v. 115. — bring them from countries beyond the fca ; and 



Herodol. L i, c. I. — Mela, L. i. c. 6. — S.rnlo, they extend tlieir conqudls, or colonies, to Italy, 



L. xvi,/i. 1097, eJ. 1707. — Plinii HiJK nal. L. v, Spain, Africa, &c. 

 f. 19 ; L. xxxvi, c. 1(1. 



