84 
April, and harvested in September. The mountains of Ararat are now 
situated in latitude of about 40°, and are more or less covered with per- 
petual snow. At the time of the Flood they were in latitude 16 , in i » 
warmer climate and suitable to receive Noah’s live stock to rephmish the 
earth-the tropical as well as other animals ; and fit for the subsequent 
growth of the vineyards which supplied Noah and his family wihwme. 
The country in which Nineveh, as well as Babylon, was situated had 
formerly its palm-trees, as delineated in the ancient carved marble- “ 
also had its wild beasts-lions, leopards, &c. ; thus indicating that all that 
region at the time of the Flood was within the tropics. I was very much 
strack with the general aspect of the country, from the Nile to Arabia, when 
I first saw it. The scene presented nothing but an interminable, parched, 
barren desert, with clouds of sand, from Cairo to Suez. The mountains of 
Horeb and Sinai appeared as burnt ferruginous rocks without a blade of grass 
to be seen anywhere-a scene of complete barrenness and desolation, it 
looked as if it was a land first risen from the deep, as it had but a few 
patches of marine deposits, from the Nile to Palestine and Arabia, with the 
exception of some calcareous beds. In almost all other parts of the world in 
both hemispheres the lands are more or less covered with various sedimentary 
deposits, and many of these are comparatively recent, as if they had been 
subject to many undulations, rising and sinking from the : level of the sea; 
but here, in Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, there are no such indications. T is 
part of the world, after having first risen from the deep to receive and sustain 
the primeval plants and animals at the creation, remamedapparently above 
water until it was overwhelmed and scoured by the flood. Other parts of the 
world subsequently rose from the deep preparatory to the dispersion of the 
human race, and the old primeval antediluvian land reappeared as a rocky, 
barren waste. The upheaval and subsidence of the level of the Bed Sea 
Syria do not appear to have been very great durmg the historical period, 
coast from Tyre to Sidon, on the shores of the Mediterranean, has risen several 
feet The changes in the South at Suez and the eastern arm of the Red Sea 
have been principally produced by blown sands and gravel from the desert 
At the time of Herodotus the Red Sea extended to Heliopolis. The rums of 
that city are now situated inland half way between Suez and the Mediter- 
ranean. Suez in 1541 received into its harbour the fleet of Solyman II., but 
it is now changed into a sandbank, and the passage further north has been 
filled up with sand blown from the desert. On the opposite Arabian side 
many of the inland ancient towns (now in ruins) were, smce the Christian 
era, on the sea shore. The blown sand and the rapid growth o t le cora s 
have encroached on the sea. The eastern valley, between the Dead Sea and 
the Red Sea, in like manner, has been gradually filling up with sand. 
At the time of Herodotus, the sun in summer— that is, m the month ot 
June-passed over the Mediterranean, and retired in wmter to Libya (or 
Central Africa). “During the winter months,’’ he says, “the sun, passing 
over the upper parts of Libya, produces the following effect As the air m 
these regions is always serene, and the soil is always hot, he produces the 
