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MARTIN L. EOUSE, ESQ.^ B.L._, ON 



geographers, historians, and poets of Greece and Kome — a 

 section, which until recent years, was httle handled by scholars, 

 and yet which should have a deep interest for the thoughtful 

 in every nation ; for it is the section which claims to prove that 

 all nations are akin and, with the help of other Biblical 

 allusions, to show what are the channels of their kinship. 



It is many years since I first made the Tenth Chapter of 

 Genesis a special study, endeavouring to find out what nations, 

 ancient and modern, bore the names there ascribed to the 

 immediate descendants of Noah's sons and, if possible, to assign 

 an ancestor among these for every nation existing now. 

 Having, to start with, only the clues given by Adam Clarke in 

 his Bible commentary (for I had not then thought even of 

 Josephus), I eagerly scanned Kiepert's Ancient Atlas, Smith's 

 Smaller Classical Lidionary, and the J^nfilish Cyclopcedia, until 

 I had modified and greatly expanded Clarke's identifications 

 with a great network of evidence. The result was fourfold : 

 firstly, I found that most of the nations identified were already 

 of large size long before the Christian era (as we should expect 

 them to have been, if they became distinct in language and 

 government as early as that striking chapter tells us, namely, 

 between the third and fourth generation after the Flood)* ; 

 secondly, that those which were stated to be descended from a 

 particular son of Noah had, as a rule, a closer affinity in 

 language with one another than with those whose descent was 

 traced from a different son ; thirdly, that they surrounded the 

 plains of Shinar (whence the Bible states them to have become 

 diffused), but surrounded no other region in a complete ring, 

 leaving no gap, and in two rings beyond this, which would have 

 been complete but for intervening seas ; and lastly, that the 

 great majority of existing peoples were embraced in the 

 enumeration, so that furtlier knowledge was likely to show that 

 the rest were embraced also. 



The reading since then of what old Josephus said upon the 

 subjectt of Professor Sayce's treatises^ and of Dr. Pinches' 

 remarks in his latest work§ besides a dip into De Morgan's 

 account of his exploration in Elam, have much augmented my 

 knowledge and have made those results more apparent, by 



* Compare chap, x, 25, with ver. 5 and chap, xi, 10-16. 

 t In his Antiquities^ Bk. I, chap. vi. 



I In his Fresh Light fi om the Ancient Monumerits and the Higher Critics 

 and the Monuments. 



§ The Old Testament in the Light of Historical Records^ etc. 



