110 
Sesostris or Ptolemy or Hiero really had, as a matter of fact, 
such enormous ships constructed, there is no reason why NoalFs 
vessel should not have reached the recorded size. One of the 
largest vessels in the English navy (the Aboukir) is, I believe, 
241 feet in length by 60 in breadth ; the Great Eastern , 324 
by 51 . In the size of the Ark there is, therefore, no antecedent 
improbability.* The next number that we meet with, the 
318 trained servants of Abraham, is probably correct : it is 
just about the number of armed retainers we could expect a 
powerful sheikh of those days to be able to bring into the 
field. 
12. But we now arrive at a number which has been a 
difficulty and an offence to many, and is, so to speak, the very 
basis of the operations of Dr. Colenso and his followers against 
the authenticity of the Old Testament, — I mean the number of 
the Israelites who passed the Bed Sea into the Desert of Sinai. 
They are said to have been 600,000 men, besides children. 
A year and a month afterwards they amount to 603,550, 
besides the Levites, some 20,000 in number. And these 
having all died, their representative progeny, forty years 
after, amount to 601,730. I do not hesitate to say that I 
consider these numbers to be very different from those 
originally written by Moses. It is usually argued that such a 
multiplication was impossible without an absolute miracle, 
This argument, it appears to me, will not hold water. We 
are given to understand that the Israelites in Egypt were 
exceptionally blessed with issue. Now, if we suppose 70 men 
to have come down into Egypt, and each man in 35 years to 
have reared, on an average, 10 children, five of them boys, we 
should have, at the end of 35 years, 350 males ; at the end of 
70, 1,750 ; at the end of 175 years, 218,750; and at the close 
of the 210 years of sojourn, 1,093,750. I say 210 years, 
because (as the Palestine Targum explains) the 430 years men- 
tioned in connection with the sojourn in Egypt are counted 
from AbrahanPs going down into that country. Now, adding 
half of each of these last two generations together, to represent 
those within the military age, we have 656,250. It is possible, 
* I took these dimensions from a treatise on “ The Ship,” by F. Steinitz. 
Admiral Fishbourne very kindly writes to me as follows : — “ You have been 
misinformed as to the dimensions of the Great Eastern , and have given those 
of the Great Britain. There are very many ships over 400 feet long now. 
The length of the Great Eastern is over 600 feet, and her breadth 82, ... . 
My belief is that the ark was 300 royal cubits of 24 inches ; and 
many have been built somewhat like the Baron Renfrew , of whole logs of 
timber.” Its size was, therefore, as I have stated, by no means incredibly 
great. There is no reason to imagine that we have not the original number 
as given by Moses. — R. T. 
