ON THE GARDEN OF EDEN. 103 
The second is mastic, a valuable mercantile commodity 
exported in great quantity to Europe and used as a stringent, 
and in drying varnishes. Why should not either of these 
productions be the bdellium mentioned in Scripture ? 
The second produce which existed in Havilah, according to 
sacred record, was the onyx stone or beryl. Commentators 
have also differed in opinion upon the nature of this stone; 
but according to the Septuagint it was supposed to be the 
latter, of light green colour. Be it as it may, it is not 
improbable that the highlands of Assyria and Coordistan, in 
the vicinity of the Zab, contain such sort of minerals as 
the onyx and beryl. Mr. William Ainsworth, the eminent 
geologist and botanist, who was attached to the Euphrates 
expedition under General Chesney visited that country in 
1837. He found en “the banks of the Zab, and for one or 
two miles on the plain of both sides, a deposit of rolled 
pebbles ef limestone, diallage rock, serpentine, hornblende, 
rock quartzes, jaspers and Lydian stone.”* 
I believe turquoise has also been known to exist in some 
parts of Coordistan bordering on the Zab. May not this be 
the pomw Shaahm of the text? 
As regards the Gzhon it is merely referred to in the second 
chapter of Genesis as the river which “ compasseth the whole 
land of Cush” (rendered in the Septuagint as Lthiopia). It 
was natural when Ethiepia was considered formerly to be in 
Africa, certain writers inclined to the belief that the Nile 
represented the Gihon; and others being convinced that there 
was another Cush in the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf 
did not hesitate to place the second river of Paradise some- 
where there. Now, however, as I said before, through the 
decipherment of a cuneiform tablet the indefatigable Assyrian 
scholar, Mr. Pinches, has discovered that there was another 
Cush, existing formerly to the south-west of Armenia, known 
to the Greeks as Cappadocia, which goes now by the name 
of Reomalee. 
it gets covered with a sweet substance in the shape of flakes of snow, and 
in the morning it is collected by the natives for sale. i quite remember 
in my boyhood, the joy which possessed those who were fond of sweets on 
their seeing the flashes of lightning on the mountains of Assyria, when 
there was no sign of clouds, especially in July and August. They all 
used to clap their hands and call out ‘‘ Mann-as-Samma, Mann-as-Samma 
is falling.” 
* Ainsworth’s Assyria, Babylonia, and Chaldea, page 256. 
