the Tower of Babel, and the first city of the postdiluvians? Do any one of the mounds which now meet the traveller's eye represent the relics of that earliest architectural effort of the human race? Or did the Babel of Nimrod, the capital of the mighty hunter, occupy the same spot as the metropolis of the Chaldæo-Babylonians?

These questions lead directly to another, on the solution of which the replies to them must mainly depend, namely, whether the land of Shinar, mentioned in the book of Genesis, is identical with the Babylonia of more recent times. To the consideration of this point we shall first address ourselves.

Many learned disquisitions have been promulgated upon this subject, and various results embraced by their authors. The opinion most commonly received is that the plains of Babylonia do really represent the land of Shinar. Some writers, however, are disposed to deny this proposition; and among these, Mr. Beke has endeavoured to prove not only that the territory of Babylonia is not identical with the land of Shinar, but that we must look for that land in Upper Mesopotamia; and he is inclined to fix it in the plains about Ur* or Orfa, in the province of Diar-Modzar. But there are better data on which to proceed in examining this question; and Mr. Ainsworth, in his "Researches," has furnished proof, first, that the country indicated by Mr. Beke as answering to the Shinar of the postdiluvians, agrees in no particular with the description of that land in Scripture; and, secondly, that the alluvial formations of Babylonia did not, at the period when the Tower of Babel was built, differ greatly in extent, consistence, or natural appearance from their condition at the present day. In regard to the first point, it may be sufficient to remark, that the whole of Upper Mesopotamia, with the exception of particular and limited spots, consists of gravelly tracts intersected by ranges of hills, in no place affording an expanse of flat country answering to the Scriptural account of Shinar. The only two level tracts of great extent are those which stretch eastward from the Khabour, and south from Sinjar to the Hamrine range of hills; and both of these, so far as is known, are rather of a gravelly than an alluvial character, and in no case far removed from mount

* See the map annexed to his work.

ains. Now we are especially told in Scripture that the builders of the Tower of Babel used bricks, well burned in the fire, instead of stones, and slime or bitumen for mortar. But in no part of Upper Mesopotamia could there have been occasion for such expedients, the two last-named materials being far less abundant than stone and mortar; whereas, in the alluvial district of Babylonia, the use of brick would become a measure of necessity; and the everflowing fountains of Hit, which unquestionably furnished the bituminous cement for the capital of Nebuchadnezzar, were at hand to supply the builders of Babel with the same ingredient.

These considerations may serve, perhaps, to prove that, notwithstanding the tempting lure which the name of Sinjar or Singara holds out to etymologists, the position of that land must be sought for at a lower point in the valley of the Euphrates, if, indeed, the whole country from the Sinjar hills downward to the sea did not, in those early times, pass under the same name. In fact, the geological researches of Mr. Ainsworth supply us with the means of showing that the early postdiluvians could have had no such serious obstacles to contend with in choosing the locality which is generally believed to have been the scene of their daring attempt. We shall not follow him through the elaborate inquiry of which he has given us the result. It goes chiefly to prove that the large beds of breccia and gravel which abound throughout Mesopotamia must have been brought to their present situation by the agency of water, at some period antecedent to the Deluge of Scripture: first, because these beds in many places underlie formations of a Plutonic character, which must have been produced by physical convulsions, of which there exists no record since that event; secondly, because these gravelly formations extend in the valley of the Euphrates to a distance below the site of ancient Babylon, having been discovered at Iskenderia, in the ancient bed of the Pallacopas, and to the west of Semava; and, thirdly, because there is every reason for believing the greater part of the alluvium of Babylonia and Chaldea to have been formed by the Flood, and to have experienced little alteration since the progress of alluvial encroachment upon the waters of the gulf by the washings of the rivers became comparatively slow. Mr. Ainsworth proves that, reckoning from the time when

Babylon attained its high rank as a city, a period of 2600 years, the increase of land by the deposition of alluvium at the head of the gulf, into which the Euphrates, Tigris, and all the rivers of Susiana empty their waters, has not exceeded the rate of thirty yards per annum.

Thus it may be considered as established, both that the Shinar of Scripture, or, at least, the portion of it referred to in the 10th chapter of Genesis, was not in Upper Mesopotamia, and also that it lay farther down the valley of the Euphrates, in an alluvial soil, in the neighbourhood of bituminous springs. A full consideration of all the circumstances detailed will, we think, lead to the conclusion that the Tower of Babel and first city of the postdiluvians must have been founded on some spot not very distant from the ruins of Babylon which are seen at this day. Whether that celebrated structure did actually occupy the exact position of those mounds that now attract the traveller's eye, is a point which, from the scanty information we possess, will never, in all human probability, be decided. Adopting, however, the reasoning of Mr. Rich, in his first Memoir on the ruins of Babylon, it may be observed that there is no Scriptural authority for supposing that the building was destroyed at the time of the dispersion of mankind, although its farther progress was arrested. We learn that the Babel of Nimrod was certainly placed in the land of Shinar, and there appears nothing unreasonable in the supposition that the city of the dispersed might continue to be the abode of the mighty hunter and of his descendants; while those who, in a later age, undertook to raise a monument to the honour of Belus, may have availed themselves of the labours of their forefathers as a foundation for their own. At the same time, it may be remarked that there are no grounds for even conjecturing to what extent the building had proceeded when stopped by the interposition of the Almighty, or whether it had attained a magnitude calculated to impart an enduring grandeur to its ruins.

Assuming, then, that the Babel of the postdiluvians did actually occupy the same, or nearly the same place as the mounds which represent the Babylon of a subsequent period, a step at least will be gained towards establishing the positions of the other cities of the kingdom of Nimrod, Erech, and Accad, and Calneh," in the land of Shinar.

Recent researches, both geographical and historical, have induced several learned persons to fix the sites of these ancient cities as follows:

Accad is supposed to be represented by the huge mound of Akkerkoof, above six miles from Bagdad, and the smaller ones by which it is surrounded.

Erech, by the still more imposing remains known by the name of Workha, in Chaldea Proper, below Lemlum. Calneh is referred to the site of Ctesiphon or Madayn, which cities have, of course, obliterated all vestiges of a prior state.

The proofs on which these conclusions rest are not as yet before the public, and it would exceed the bounds of a work like this to give in detail a chain of evidence and reasoning which, it is to be hoped, will soon appear in a perfect shape. But, with regard to the first, it may be mentioned that, while the remains of ancient embankments, canals, and other buildings, fragments of pottery, glass, and similar substances, no less than the nature of its structure and materials, attest its having, in very remote times, been a place of great importance, the name applied to it by several ancient authors approaches to that of the ancient city of Nimrod. Thus, in the text of the Talmud, it is called Aggada, and the learned Hyde quotes from Maimonides the expression "Extat Aggada tres annos natus" in reference to this spot. That the Accad of Scripture should be found in the vicinity of Babel was to be expected; and it is worthy of remark, that the Akkerkoof of the Arabs is by the Turks called Aker-i-Nimrod or Akree-Babel.

The name of Erech appears to be well preserved in the present appellation of Irkah, Irakh, or Workha; while its locality with reference to that of Babel, as now assumed, appears confirmatory of the conjecture that it commemorates the second-mentioned city of Nimrod. Yet it is possible that it may represent only the Orchoe of the Chaldeans instead of Umgeyer or Mugeyer, a ruin hitherto unknown or undescribed, and which by some is conceived to occupy the ground of that city; while, on the other hand, the term Orchoe may be nothing more than a modification of the ancient Erech, and Workha or Irkha a more modern pronunciation of both.

The comparative vicinity of the site of Ctesiphon to

that of ancient Babel may, in like manner, lend plausibility to the conjecture which places the Calneh of Nimrod's kingdom on the ground afterward occupied by the former; and it is farther strengthened by the appellation of Chalonitis, subsequently borne by the whole district, which was the seat of one of the early bishoprics. Yet even in the position of Chalonitis there appears to be a doubt; for Isidore of Charax, himself a native of that quarter, says that Apolloniatis commenced at Seleucia, extending eastward thirty-three shæni or parasangs, the city of Artemita, then called Chalasar, being distant fifteen of these measures from Seleucia, nearly direct east. From thence that is, from the boundary of Apolloniatis -stretches Chalonitis, twenty-one shæni broad, of which a Greek city, Chala, is the capital, fifteen shæni from Apolloniatis, and 156 miles east of Seleucia. Five shæni east from it is Mount Zagros, the boundary between Chalonitis and the territory of the Medes.*

That any portion of the mounds now seen, or the sites we have described, belong to those earliest cities of the world, which are presumed to have been there erected, it would be more than rash to affirm. On the contrary, it is almost certain that, in the long period of more than 4000 years which have elapsed since Nimrod founded his kingdom in Shinar, every portion of the original fabrics must have mouldered into dust, and that the huge mounds which astonish us in various parts-such as the Birs Nimrod, Akkerkoof, Workha, Mugeyer, Sunkhera, Zibliyeh, Jibel Sanam, and others-belong all to far later, though still very remote ages, and were temples erected at the instance of the Chaldean priesthood, in the days succeeding Bel or Pul, to the honour of their various deities.

From the consideration of these heaps of dust and potsherds, it is now time to turn our eyes for a while to the Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar, "the glory of the kingdoms," "the golden city," "the praise of the whole earth," which the arrogant monarch, in the days of his impious pride, declared that he had built by the might of his power and for the honour of his majesty.

But, in order to form some idea of this splendid metrop

* Essays on the Geography of Ancient Asia. By the Rev. John Williafrs, 8yo, Lond. 1829, p. 58.