e them on.
Nothing, we should be inclined to say, short of the most powerful action
of electric fire, could have produced the complete, yet circumscribed,
fusion which is here observed. Although fused into a solid mass, the
courses of bricks are still visible, identifying them with the standing
pile above, but so hardened by the power of heat, that it is almost
impossible to break off the smallest piece; and, though porous in
texture, and full of air-holes and cavities, like other bricks, they
require, on being submitted to the stone-cutter's lathe, the same
machinery as is used to dress the hardest pebbles."[103]

The doom of Nineveh, the great rival and predecessor of Babylon, was
also predicted as the result of two apparently contradictory
agencies--an overrunning flood and a consuming fire. But both these
antagonistic elements conspired to devour her. The river, with an
overrunning flood, swept away a large portion of the walls. The
besiegers entered through the breach, and set the city on fire. The
charcoal, burnt beans, and slabs of half-calcined alabaster, in the
British Museum, demonstrate the fulfillment of the prediction.

Egypt was to be reduced to slavery and degradation. Babylonia to utter
barrenness and desolation; but a different and still more incredible
doom is pronounced in the Bible upon Judea and its people. The land was
to be emptied of its people, and remain uncultivated, retaining all its
former fertility, while the people were to be scattered over all the
earth, yet never to lose their distinct nationality, nor be amalgamated
with their neighbors: "_I will make your cities waste, and bring your
sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savor of your
sweet odors. And I will bring the land into desolation: and your
enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And I will
scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and
your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. Then shall the land
enjoy her Sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your
enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her
Sabbaths._"[104] "_Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and
the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, and the Lord
have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst
of the land. But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and
shall be eaten: as a teil-tree, and as an oak, whose substance