cle, as whimsically attributed thereto by the Hebrews, but of the variety of nations, of which the Assyrian host was com posed.

And that the dispersion of mankind in the days of Peleg, as described in Genesis, and ascribed to the vengeance of the Creator, for the presumption, and impiety of Noah and his family, is one and the same event, as the historial fact of the flight of Noah, and the emigrations of the Nomades from Messipotamia, a palpable and necessary consequence of the Assyrian invasion, not the effect of divine indignation, and supernatural agency.

I feel myself warranted to say,

That the ancient Scythian empire extended from the Ind, the tribes on the banks of which river were called Indo Scythæ, to the confines of Europe, the tribes bordering on which were denominated Celto Scythæ, circumstances that accurately point out their limits.

That antecedently to the overthrow of their most vast dominion, there were three celebratod people of antiquity from the Ind, to the Nile and the Mediterranean. Arabs, Scythians, and Egyptians. That after that event, a fourth people called Assyrians, for the first time made their appearance in that part of the earth, and that these four people were totally different each from the other, in manners, customs, institutions, religion, and language; the variance not growing out of miracles, and the dispersion of the family of the man Noah, but because they had ever been from the time of this globe becoming a member of this solar system, distinct genera of the species of the animal man.

Though these events shrouded in obscurity for so many ages, seem to be of no moment at this time, it is not so, on your acquaintance with these facts mainly depends your capability of clearly understanding what is to follow, for these events miraculous causes have been assigned by the Hebrew writers, the relation delivered in enigmas, which causes are considered at this hour good and sufficient, and which enigmas have received solutions perfectly satisfactory to immense multitudes of

mankind, if a judgment can be formed from outward appear

unces.

Not to enter upon an enquiry into the views and motives of those, who have taken on them to expound the writings of the Hebrews, nor of the description of persons who implicitly or affectedly receive their expositions, for myself I say, though all the world in ignorance and singleness of heart, should, or from zeal for the propagation of impious and pious frauds, pretend to credit tales on the authority of miracles and mysteries, I will never capitulate with such treacherous foes to the senses, nor surrender my reason, which is my revelation, upon the humiliating terms they exact.

Having now set before you all the known accounts of this earth, from the most remote time to the founding of Ba-bel, permit me to express an hope that you will do justice to your understanding by removing every obstacle that may prevent the full exercise of your reason, and thereby have your mind in a condition to form a dispassionate judgment on the facts submitted, and about to be submitted thereto.

In conclusion of this part of our subject, I beg leave to add my own opinion, founded on my observations on the invasion of nations. That the Arabs were the aborigines of all the lands from the Oxus to the Persian ocean, and from the Indus to the Mediterrenean sea; and that on the pouring of the Scythians from the north and north-east of the Caspian southward, the Arabs retired before them beyond Euphrates, into the regions they have ever since occupied, impregnable to strangers by reason of their situation, and natural properties.

NOTES TO PART II.

(a) I use here the term Chaldean following the Hebrew accounts, That Abram, their progenitor, was from Chaldea.

(b) From Eolus we learn that his tribe of the Scythian race commenced their noting of time 3113 years antecedently to the overthrow of their empire by the Assyrians, which being 2246 years before the Christian era, he whole space from the first keeping a record of time to the birth of Christ, is 5359 years; now by the vulgar computation, according to the Mosaic accounts always adhered to, the chronology from the Creation to

the birth of Christ is 4004 years how is this to be reconciled to the following passage in Josephus?

"Those antiquities (meaning the antiquities of his the Jewish nations contains the history of five thousand years, and are taken out of our sacred books; but are translated by me into the Greek tongue." Josephus wrote his antiquities about 80 years after Christ, which time, substracted from 5000, leaves 4920, more by 916 than the sacred writings come down to us declare, whilst Eolus and Josephus differ 439 years, not one moiety of the space between the sacred writings of our days and Josephus. This plain fact should make men cautious of placing implicit confidence in all writings of very high antiquity, subject as they are to so many casualties.

(c) Mag-sean-ataip is pronounced Ma-senar, and signifies the plains of the Old Father.

From the dismemberment of the ancient Scythian Empire, and the building of Ba-bel by the Assyrians, in 2246, to the expulsion of the shepherd chiefs from Egypt, and their arrival in Pelasgia and Ceropeia, about 1100 before Cerist.

PART III.

HAVING pointed out the original seat of the Scythian race, the countries occupied by them, and described persons, and events in terms intelligible from the earliest note of time, till the termination of the Scythian dominion in Messipotamia, which was the commencement of the Assyrian empire in that part of Asia, the first metropolis of which was Ba-bel, it will be necessary to take a view of all the nations from the Ind to the Mediterranean, after the Assyrian invasion, and of the effect produced by that event upon all the Scythian tribes dwelling thereon, the history whereof is enveloped in obscurity profound, the only intelligence being derived from the writings of the Hebrews, which, (though in their customary style of confusion,) will serve to enable us to grope our way, if not by a connected detail to a satisfactory conclusion, yet to the establishment of some few facts important to the illustration of our subject.

When the Assyrians (whom from the description of the Hebrews, and of Eolus, I take to be the many people of Seres, and of the neighbour lands,) invaded the Scythians, you must not fancy they overran all the Scythian nations from the Ind to Euphrates, nor that the Scythian empire, though shaken, was annihilated. That great commotion prevailed in the line of the Assyrian march is to be inferred, and that multitudes followed Noah to Ardmenia we are informed. By consulting Genesis, we find that the Assyrians were engaged in building

strong places, first in Messipotamia, and that the seat of their government was after a while removed from Ba-bel in Chaldea to Nin-eveh, a city built by, and named from Nin the son of Bel, on the east of the Tigris, some forty or fifty miles north of Ba-bel, as mentioned in the 11th chapter of Genesis, the theme of so many absurd conjectures of ignorant commen

tators.

10. "And the beginning of his (Nimrod's) kingdom was Ba-bel and Enoch, and Accad, and Calnah, in the land of Shinar.

11. "Out of that land went forth' Asshur and builded Nin-eveh, and the city Rehoboth and Caleb."

Which passage is made as plain as words can do, by merely giving the term Asshur its true signification thus: "the beginning of his (Nimrod or Bel) kingdom was Ba-bel in Shinar, from whence went the Assyrians, and builded Nineveh ;" an obscurity arises from an idea that Asshur was an individual person, whereas the word means the Assyrians, Asshur being an addition of distinction to the kings of the Assyrians, by the Hebrews and all the Scythian people. This translation of the Assyrian metropolis from Ba-bel to Nineveh, was a measure resulting from wisdom and sound policy, not from whim or caprice, and proves that the conquest of the Assyrians had affected no parts of the Scythian empire, save Messipotamia, and the countries lying between Nin-eveh and their original land. Elam and all the southern nations of the Scythians east of Tigris, had preserved their independence— therefore must have been considered dangerous neighbours to a government not yet firmly established. This was the motive that induced the Assyrians to remove the supreme seat farther from these warlike Scythian tribes, and in more direct communication with their own country, leaving Ba-bel and the land of Shinar to the care of a viceroy,—and that Elam preserved its independence-and that the Assyrians did not carry their arms west of Euphrates for the course of three hundred and twenty-one years from the date of the commencement of their government in Messipotamia, clearly appears from the