133 
Some of these bricks had, on one side, an unknown inscription ; and 
on the other, the bitumen adhered : and, on those parts which w^e 
not covered by bitumen, on the other side, the marks of matting 
appeared, on which it was supposed they had been placed to dry. 
From every concurrent testimony, we have, therefore, reason to 
conclude, that bitumen was the tenacious substance which the sacred 
historian meant to describe, as the substitute for mortar, employed 
by the builders of the town of Babel. Nor can it be observed, 
without considerable pleasure, that these discoveries serve strongly 
to evince the high degree of fidelity which pervades the Mosaic 
history. 
Strabo, who speaks of the ruins of Sodom, which, he says, were 
sixty furlongs in compass, and were then to be seen on the shores 
of the Dead Sea, relates, that the waters of the lake Sirbon are so 
heavy in their nature, that those who attempt to dive m them, 
are raised up as soon as they sink as low as the naveD. It is lull 
of bitumen, which rises from the bottom in bubbles, like those of 
boiling water, giving to the waved surface of the lake an appearance 
as if little hills were arising from it. The bitumen, he supposes to 
have been liquified by heat, and then diffused and condensed in 
the water, on which it floats, from the peculiar nature of the water ; 
and is afterwards obtained by the neighbouring inhabitants, who 
for this purpose were rowed to it on rafts f. 
Causabon, Lancisius, in his Notes on Mercatus’s Metallotheca, 
and others, are of opinion that Strabo has here, by some mistake, 
attributed to lake Sirbon, that assemblage of curious circumstances 
which more properly belonged to the lake Asphaltm. Indeed his 
description, of which a sketch only is here given, corresponds very 
nearly, in every particular, with that given by Diodorus Siculus o 
the last mentioned lake. 
* Strabonis Geogr. lib. xv. 
f Ibid. lib. xvi. 
