in tJic Temperature of JV'mtcr. S 



bondage ; but was not permitted to go farther north than 

 mount Nebo, in the land of Moab, over against Jericho, 

 just upon the borders of Judea, and this but a short time 

 before his death. 



It is very evident that Moses had Tiever before seen 

 that country, because he v/as directed to ascend the 

 mount, and take a view of the lands destined to be the 

 residence of the IsraeUtes — a circumstance that plainly 

 indicates his former ignorance of the countr}", which 

 could not have been the case, had he ever dwelt in Uz, 

 to the north and east of Judea.; for in that case he must 

 have passed through this country. 



Nor is it at all probable that the writer of that book 

 would lay the scene of it in a country of which he was 

 ignorant. Every circumstance tends to prove that the 

 writer knew the country, its climate and productions ; 

 and the frequent mention of snow, ice and frost in Job is 

 the highest evidence that the author had lived in a re- 

 gion where these substances were common and well 

 known. If we suppose the writer to have lived in Ju- 

 dea, or in the northern parts of Arabia Deserta, the situ- 

 ation of Uz, he must have seen snow and ice every win- 

 ter ; but Moses probably had little or no knowledge of 

 them. In Midian and Egypt, where he had spent his 

 days, they rarely occurred ; and in the five books, sup- 

 posed to be of his writing, there are scarcely two or three 

 references to snow or frost. In the 31st chapter of Ge- 

 nesis, Jacob is represented as complaining to Laban that 

 he had served him twenty years, enduring drouth by 

 day and frost by night ; but this was in Padan-haran, to 

 the northward of Jerusalem. In Exodus xvi. 14, the 

 manna in the wilderness is compared to hoar-frost ; and 

 in the 6th chapter, a leprous hand is compared to snow. 

 But in all the acknowledged writings of Moses, there is 

 not the least evidence that ice was ever seen in Egypt, 

 except in the time of the ten plagues, and in the form of 

 hail. The silence of those early records, on this point, 

 is no small argument, that the climate of Egypt was then 

 as warm as it is at this day. Hail has been sometimes 

 seen in that country, as it is in many other parts of the 



