father of Xisusthrus or Sisusthrus, which is the same, Ardates. We can scarcely suppose that Mr. Bryant follows Syncellus, for the purpose of establishing that mankind were preserved in the race of Cain; which must be the case, if Sisustbrus was the son of Otiartes. It was the history of the kings, not of the patriarchs, that Berosus promised to give an account of in his second book. As this, unfortunately, has not been preserved, we must be satisfied with the information which we find in the first, where it is recorded, that of the ten generations of antediluvian princes, seven only, inclusive of Alorus, became sovereigns before the flood; and where their names and the number of years each prince in the line of Alaparus reigned from the death of Alorus to the deluge are specified. And after telling us that those six reigns collectively occupied seventy-four Zapo, or 740 years, and reached to the deluge, Alexander Polyhistor further informs us, "that after the death of Ardates, his son Sisuthrus succeeded, and reigned eighteen Zapo; in his time was the well-known deluge." Now, as Ardates was not of the race of Alaparus, Sisuthrus the son of Ardates must have been of the race of Seth. Berosus wrote of the kings who governed the antediluvian world; and the Chaldeans, equally with the Hebrew, Chinese, Egyptian, and Hindu historians, repre

sent all the kings except one who governed the world, from the death of the first-created to the deluge, as the descendants of the eldest son of our first parent; thus admitting the eighth prince, who was saved in the ark, to have descended from a younger son; and clearly evincing, that, if the eighteen Zapot noticed by Alexander Polyhistor, were intended for the reign of Sisuthrus, they could not have been in the antediluvian world, But here, I conceive, we have an error of the translator; who, reading in Berosus, that "the prince during whose reign happened the great deluge, reigned eighteen Zapot," and in another part, that during the time of Sisuthrus, the son of Ardates, happened the great deluge, attached the eighteen apo as the reign of the latter; not recollecting that Anodaphus, who reigned that number of years, and whose reign reached to the deluge, although the contemporary of Sisuthrus, was not of the same rank at the same time with him. Anodaphus was the seventh and last king of the old world; Sisuthrus the eighth and first king of the new world. How, says Mr. Bryant, "could the ancients be so weak as to imagine, that there was a city in Babylon, and a country named from it, ten generations before the flood, also a province styled Chaldea? These names were circumstantial and imposed in after times, for particular reasons,

which could not before have existed. Babylon was the Babel of Scripture, so named from the confusion of tongues. In like manner Chaldea was denominated from people named Chusdim or Chassdim." The first assertion is founded on very high authority, but we have the same authority for saying that when the city of Babylon was first built the whole world was " of one language, and of one speech." Consequently, unless the Hebrew was that one language, neither the city nor the tower, could have been then named from the word confusion: Although it might subsequently have been so called, by the Hebrews, but not by the Chaldeans. On or about the time that Peleg was born, Noah divided the world between his three sons. Ham and Japheth travelled westward. They departed from their father Noah, to inhabit those countries which the Almighty had appointed for them. They stopt at a plain in the land of Shinar, and disregarding the orders which they had received to separate, they determined to build a city and a tower, which employed them for twentyfour years when they left off building the city, all the workmen being necessary for the completion of the tower. By this time, the population being greatly increased, they set about enlarging the city. For on that work they were employed, when they were scattered from thence, over the

face of the earth. When this people first parted from Noah, Babylon contained two-thirds of the population of the world; probably amounting, including women and children, to about 4600 persons; of whom 948 males might have attained the age of 20 years. These persons, most probably, called the country by that name which Japheth and Ham had known it by, in the old world. The argument, therefore, veers from the point to which it was directed. For, as this author admits, that the account, given by Berosus, goes so far back as "the first year of time, which was the first year after the flood;" this being 140 years before the languages were confounded, the word Babel militates just as much against the 140 years of the new world, as the 1656 of the old. But after all, Berosus never informs us, that the country was called Chaldea, or the city Babylon. He tells us, that "when the Deity warned Sisuthrus to retire with his family into the ark, that he directed him to bury all the sacred records in a temple in the city of the Sun at Sipora (thence called the City of Books) that after the ark had rested on one of the Corcyrean mountains in Armenia, the Chaldeans (those persons by whom Sipora was repeopled after the deluge) taking a

* Gen. xi. 8.

circuitous route, journeyed towards Babylonia; and having found the records, which contained the account of the beginning, procedure, and final conclusion of all things from the creation to the deluge, they set about building cities, erecting temples, and Babylon was thus inhabited again.” Now, as the records were deposited in a temple at Sipora, before the deluge, and found immediately after it, in a temple in that city, which, in after times, was named Babylon, it is clear, that Berosus supposed Sipora to be the antediluvian name of Babylon. The Hindus, and Egyptians, name the city which they suppose the seat of regal state before the deluge, Casi, or the Splendid. And it is highly probable that the two sons of Noah, Ham, and Japheth, who had lived an hundred years in the antediluvian world, should have directed their course towards that city, which had formerly been the capital of the world, and where they probably found many ancient temples and palaces still remaining. It is sufficient for our purpose, that Berosus meant to say that the city, which in his time was named Babylon, was that city formerly named Sipora; in which the records of the old world had been preserved. And then it would be just as rational to assert, that Ham never settled at Babylon, because the city where the tower of Babel was built was situated east of