re than one hundred miles inland
from the present sea-line. The extension was called N[=a]r Marratum. In
Alexander's time, the city of Charax (now Mohamra) was founded close to
the sea (that was in the fourth century B.C.). It is known from later
histories, that shortly before the birth of our Saviour, the city was
from fifty to one hundred and twenty Roman miles inland. The change is
due to the "Delta," or alluvial formation at the mouth of the rivers.

Turning, then, to the recent inquiries (published in 1881[1]) by
Professor Fried. Delitzsch, it must be confessed that the results
obtained are such as to completely avoid all the difficulties that beset
the other explanations: yet we ought not to be too confident that it is
a final or absolute explanation. A certain caution and reserve will
still be wisely maintained on the subject. At any rate, they show that
_an_ explanation, one that answers _all_ the conditions of the problem,
_can_ be given; and that is a great thing.

[Footnote 1: "Wo lag das Paradies" (Leipzig, 1881) is the title of the
book.]

[Footnote: Professor Friedrich Delitzsch is Professor of Assyriology in
the University of Leipzig.]

In placing the site _on_ the Euphrates, and far from the mountain
sources, there is no violence done to the Hebrew language used to
describe the first river, as one that "went out," and watered the
Garden. The words do not require that the river should actually _take_
its _rise_ within the Garden limits; but it is necessary that the river
should be so situated, that its waters could be distributed by means of
creeks or canals across the Garden, that it could be said the river
"went out and watered the Garden." Now it is a remarkable fact, that in
the district just above Babylon, the bed of the Euphrates is in level
much higher than the bed of the Tigris (Hiddekel) to the east, and that
hence there always have been a number of very variable channels leading
from the Euphrates eastward to the Tigris. These, it is well known, were
often enlarged by the ancients and converted into useful "inundation
canals" for irrigation and the passage of boats. Imagine, then, the high
level river bed of the Euphrates, and various streams flowing off it
down to the valley of the Tigris, and we have a most efficiently
irrigated "Garden," and one accurately described by the text--the great
river "went out" and watered it. The Euphrates, moreover, is liable to
great flushes of water from