ch of those works
whose grandeur astonishes the mind; of those wells of Tyre, of those
dykes of the Euphrates, of those subterranean conduits of Media,* of
those fortresses of the desert, of those aqueducts of Palmyra, of those
temples, of those porticoes. And such labors might be immense, without
oppressing the nations; because they were the effect of an equal and
common contribution of the force of individuals animated and free.

* See respecting these monuments my Travels into Syria, vol.
ii. p. 214.

From the town or village of Samouat the course of the Euphrates is
accompanied with a double bank, which descends as far as its junction
with the Tygris, and from thence to the sea, being a length of about a
hundred leagues, French measure. The height of these artificial banks
is not uniform, but increases as you advance from the sea; it may be
estimated at from twelve to fifteen feet. But for them, the inundation
of the river would bury the country around, which is flat, to an extent
of twenty or twenty-five leagues and even notwithstanding these banks,
there has been in modern times an overflow, which has covered the whole
triangle formed by the junction of this river to the Tygris, being
a space of country of one hundred and thirty square leagues. By the
stagnation of these waters an epidemical disease of the most fatal
nature was occasioned. It follows from hence, 1. That all the flat
country bordering upon these rivers, was originally a marsh; 2. That
this marsh could not have been inhabited previously to the construction
of the banks in question; 3. That these banks could not have been the
work but of a population prior as to date; and the elevation of Babylon,
therefore, must have been posterior to that of Nineveh, as I think
I have chronologically demonstrated in the memoir above cited. See
Encyclopedia, vol. xiii, of Antiquities.

The modern Aderbidjan, which was a part of Medea, the mountains of
Koulderstan, and those of Diarbekr, abound with subterranean canals, by
means of which the ancient inhabitants conveyed water to their parched
soil in order to fertilize it. It was regarded as a meritorious act
and a religious duty prescribed by Zoroaster, who, instead of preaching
celibacy, mortifications, and other pretended virtues of the monkish
sort, repeats continually in the passages that are preserved respecting
him in the Sad-der and the Zend-avesta:

"That the action most pleasing to God is to p