126 HORMUZD RASSAM, ESQ., 
was not. The Garden of Eden of the Bible having existed in the 
earliest days of the human race, we can have no other record of 
it except that revealed in Holy Writ. That the early Babylonians, 
after the flood, had their Garden of Eden, in imitation of the 
traditional one, we may well believe, but certain modern in- 
vestigators, like the one whose statements in Wo lag das 
Paradies ? Mr. Rassam controverts, must not call upon us to 
regard it as the original one; history furnishes examples of 
traditional and historical places having modern namesakes. 
The AutHor.—At this late hour I will only return you my thanks 
for the kind way in which my paper has been received. 
The Meeting was then adjourned. 
REMARKS ON THE FOREGOING PAPER. 
Major C. R. Conprr, R.E., D.C.L., LL.D., writes :— 
I believe with Mr. Rassam that the idea of putting Eden in 
Babylonia is quite impossible, and ought never to have been put 
forward. It has deluded many on account of Dr. Delitzsch’s 
reputation as a scholar, but seems to me to bear no reference 
to the plain words of Genesis. 
I have always supposed it clear that the head waters of Tigris 
and Euphrates, somewhere near Lake Van and Ararat, were 
intended to be understood. 
Of course there was another Eden which is noticed in the Bible, 
and many Paradises, since the word only means “ garden,”’ but this 
latter word is Aryan, and not used in the Bible. 
I set forth these views, which I think are those of all sober 
students, in my ‘‘ Primer of Bible Geography ”’ in 1884. 
That the Zab should be the Pison seems very likely, but I do 
not see the necessity of supposing earthquakes, and removing 
the Gihon to the distant Piramis. The main affluent from a lake 
near Ararat into the Araxes might be the fourth river. We do 
not know how large was the enclosure intended by the word gan 
Eden. 
The word Kusa for Cush is of value, but Cush was long ago 
