ests upon the mountains as pillars. Such a belief is
entirely natural; it conforms to the appearance of things, and hence at
a very early period entered into various theologies.

In the civilizations of Chaldea and Egypt it was very fully developed.
The Assyrian inscriptions deciphered in these latter years represent the
god Marduk as in the beginning creating the heavens and the earth: the
earth rests upon the waters; within it is the realm of the dead; above
it is spread "the firmament"--a solid dome coming down to the horizon on
all sides and resting upon foundations laid in the "great waters" which
extend around the earth.

On the east and west sides of this domed firmament are doors, through
which the sun enters in the morning and departs at night; above it
extends another ocean, which goes down to the ocean surrounding the
earth at the horizon on all sides, and which is supported and kept away
from the earth by the firmament. Above the firmament and the upper ocean
which it supports is the interior of heaven.

The Egyptians considered the earth as a table, flat and oblong, the sky
being its ceiling--a huge "firmament" of metal. At the four corners of
the earth were the pillars supporting this firmament, and on this solid
sky were the "waters above the heavens." They believed that, when chaos
was taking form, one of the gods by main force raised the waters on high
and spread them out over the firmament; that on the under side of this
solid vault, or ceiling, or firmament, the stars were suspended to light
the earth, and that the rains were caused by the letting down of the
waters through its windows. This idea and others connected with it seem
to have taken strong hold of the Egyptian priestly caste, entering
into their theology and sacred science: ceilings of great temples, with
stars, constellations, planets, and signs of the zodiac figured upon
them, remain to-day as striking evidences of this.

In Persia we have theories of geography based upon similar conceptions
and embalmed in sacred texts.

From these and doubtless from earlier sources common to them all came
geographical legacies to the Hebrews. Various passages in their sacred
books, many of them noble in conception and beautiful in form, regarding
"the foundation of the earth upon the waters," "the fountains of the
great deep," "the compass upon the face of the depth," the "firmament,"
the "corners of the earth," the "pillars of heaven," the "waters