III. ELEMENTS OF ANCIENT GEOGRAPHY. The Earth is THE LORD's, and the fullness thereof, For He hath founded it upon the seas, VOL. I. X Psalm xxiv. III. ELEMENTS OF ANCIENT GEOGRAPHY. INTRODUCTION. IN every Historical transaction, the circumstances of Time and Place are essentially combined, and cannot be separated in fact, however distinct in theory. To determine the former, is the proper business of Chronology; to determine the latter, of Geography; and these joint handmaids to History are both indispensably requisite to its scientific study. Having, therefore, already given the Elements of Technical and Historical Chronology, I now proceed to give a sketch of the Elements of Ancient Geography, so far as connected therewith. The necessity for this arises from the imperfection and the incorrectness of the elementary treatises in use. Of these, the best, perhaps, is Well's Historical Geography of the OLD TESTAMENT, in three volumes, octavo *. This work contains a great deal of excellent matter, well arranged, and many curious observations of modern travellers, respecting the ancient and modern state of the Holy Land, and of the other countries recorded in SCRIPTURE. But since his time, many mistakes have been corrected, and much new and important information conveyed by subsequent travellers, Bruce, Niebuhr, &c. and by later geographers, especially Major Rennel, in his valuable work on the Geography of Herodotus. Much also still remains to be * This useful work has been reprinted at the Clarendon press, Oxford, 1801, in two volumes, octavo, with improved maps. gleaned from former travellers, Chardin, Sandys, Maundrel, Thevenot, Shaw, Pococke, &c. more carefully examined; and not a little from the vast fund of miscellaneous information scattered through the Asiatic Researches, and other periodical publications, and the works of the learned in general; Bryant on the Plagues of Egypt; Bishop Clayton's Delineation of the Route of the Israelites in the Wilderness of Arabia Petræa, &c.; Mr. Howard's Thoughts on the Structure of the Earth, &c. From all which, the present Elementary Treatise has been compiled, with as much attention as possible to compression of matter and clearness of arrangement. As Ancient Geography forms also one of the principal fastnesses of Infidelity at the present day, the objections of infidels, and the doubts of sceptics, respecting some very important points, are fully canvassed; and more philosophical, perhaps, as well as more Scriptural, solutions here proposed, of difficulties affecting the Mosaical account of the Creation, the garden of Eden, the Deluge, the varieties of Mankind, the passage of the Red Sea, the stations of the Israelites in the wilderness, the topography of Jerusalem, and its environs, &c. than have hitherto appeared. CREATION OF THE WORLD. Where wast thou when I laid the foundation of the earth? Who laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? Or who stretched the line upon it? Whereupon were its foundations fastened? Or who laid the corner-stone thereof? When the Morning Stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy.-JOB. THE Mosaical account of the Creation of the World is distinguished for its simplicity and perspicuity above all the cosmogonies of the Romans, Greeks, Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Chinese, which still, however, tend to confirm and verify it in the leading circumstances. The venerable author relates the creation of all visible matter, and formation of "the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them," the earth, sun, moon, and stars,—in the order in which they were severally produced by Divine agency; but he does not attempt to inform us of the mode of operation by which the whole was accomplished. He states the simple facts, either as truths immediately revealed by God, or handed down by authentic tradition: which tradition must have been ultimately derived from Divine revelation, communicated either to our first parents, Adam and Eve, or to their pious descendants, Enoch, Noah, &c. For it is absolutely impossible, that human sagacity could have developed mysteries beyond the reach of mortal ken: For man to tell how human life began, Is hard, for who himself beginning knew?-Milton. And man's utter ignorance of the original process of creation, is finely expressed in the foregoing passage of the early patriarch Job, who probably flourished in the seventh generation after the deluge, many centuries before the birth of Moses, but who speaks of the divine agency as a well-known fact, universally acknowledged at that time. To instruct or reform mankind, when, in process of time, they had mistaken, or were prone to mistake, the creature for THE CREATOR, the venerable author, in the first instance, informs them, that "In the beginning, GOD created the heavens and the earth." Gen. i. 1. Here, the sacred historian, in opposition to false and atheistical philosophy, teaches the true origin of things. He declares, that the world was not eternal, but had a beginning; that it was created, or its primitive elements produced, out of nothing; contrary to the maxim, ex nihilo nihil fit, which cannot controul OMNIPOTENCE, to whom the creation of passive senseless matter, and of active intelligent spirit, are both equally easy; and that it was not, as idly and absurdly asserted, made by chance, or a fortuitous concourse of atoms, or elementary pre-existent particles, but created by GOD, or THE LORD OF GODS, Gen. ii. 4; "who created all things by JESUS CHRIST," Ephes. iii. 9; "the Original WORD," or "ORACLE OF GOD," "by whom all things were made, and without whom was not any thing made that hath been." John i. 1,2; Rev. xix. 13. This appears to be the proper sense of creating, as distinguished from the subsequent acts of forming and making, which are also noticed, Gen. i. 7-31; ii. 3-7. They are all united |