265 
will scarcely allow this theme to be followed out. It will be 
sufficient to translate some remarks of the Baron d’Eckstein* on 
the subject. 
62. Tubal, the name of a tribe, the probable name of a corpora- 
tion , is the equivalent of the Telchines of primitive Greece. We 
meet in Genesis x. this name, which belongs to a Circassian race, — 
to that of the Tibareni, — neighbours of the Chalybes, aboriginals 
of the mountains which border the Euxine Sea, who were forgers 
of iron and workers in brass, famous in the times of the Argonauts. 
In Ezekiel, Tubal is in the number of the tribes contributary to 
the commerce of Tyre, the city to wffiich they delivered the brass of 
their mountains. The precious stones which are called Tibarenian 
are also the glory of Tubal. These are tribes against whom 
Xenophon warred after his Assyrian expedition. 
63. It would certainly appear that whilst a large portion of the 
earth may have been oppressed with a glacial climate, a consider- 
able amount of civilization had been attained before the Deluge 
in some favoured regions of Asia. If this rises no higher than mere 
material civilization, we have to inquire wffiether it was the same 
in the race of Seth, or whether higher and more intellectual 
pursuits elevated the minds of these. Concerning this point we 
have little or no information in Scripture, but it would seem that 
the lives of these patriarchs were abnormally lengthened, so that 
they became the prototypes of the demigods of Egypt, and perhaps 
of other nations. Lives thus protracted must have been used for 
some purpose, and we can scarcely imagine any exercise of the 
intellectual powers so certain to arise as those of astronomy and 
medicine. It is only in connection with the quiet pursuits of 
agriculture that such long lives could be reached, or the cultivation 
of the intellect advance. 
64. I am, therefore, inclined to think that there is much 
resemblance to the truth — at all events, considerable probability — 
in the traditions collected by Dr. Chwolson from the accounts of 
the Ssabi, as' delivered by Mahometan writers. These people 
identified Idris with Enoch, and assert that he gave certain books, 
which he had written to his son Methuselah, and to his second 
son, Ssabi, from whom they derived their religion. Even the 
Koran keeps up the tradition of this identification. Idris seems 
to have been looked upon as a great physician and philosopher, 
and to have been taken up to God by fire from heaven ; on which 
account they burnt their dead, and some of them even burnt them • 
selves alive. Idris, f according to one author, taught his children 
* Lenormant, L’Epoque neolithique, p. 122. 
t Chwolson, Die Ssabier, p. 246. 
