In this narrative the object of these wicked idolaters was to ascend and carry war into heaven against God. To accomplish this object or design they built the city and tower; the latter served for the granary as well as the stronghold of the new city.

Abraham was born about this time. His father Terah was then in the service of King Nimrod, in Babylon. Owing to the idolatry and the wickedness of the people, Abraham left the country with his wife and nephew, and settled in the land of Canaan. When Joseph was a child he must have heard from his father the story of those eventful times, when Abraham dwelt in the country wherein he was born. In due time he availed himself of the knowledge thus imparted to him in his early days.

Modern travellers have found many remains of Pyramids in the ancient kingdom of Babylonia. There was, therefore, nothing new or wonderful in the fact of Joseph erecting granaries throughout Egypt when a severe famine was expected. These granaries or Pyramids began in the Delta, which was most fertile and yielded the largest amount of corn. The Pyramids here are the finest as well as the largest ; the rest are erected along the western shore of the Nile as far as Ethiopia, which was a province of Egypt. This province revolted in the lifetime of Moses. He went there as commander of the Egyptian forces and suppressed the rebellion. The ruins in Meroë and Axum, and other places in Ethiopia, attest the truth of this statement.

Egyptologists have spent much time and labour in pursuit of their science, but, very unfortunately,

their researches have been directed by misleading guides.

The authorities they took for their guidance were the Greek and Roman writers, who knew nothing about the events that took place before Egypt became a province of Alexander the Great and of the emperors of Rome.

The oldest and best records of Egypt and the ancient world were written by the inspired historian Moses, and these records, or a small portion of them, were translated from the Hebrew into the Greek language by seventy Jewish elders for the King Ptolemy Philadelphus in the year 284 B.C.; so that before this time the outer or the Gentile world was in utter ignorance regarding the history of Egypt, as well as that of the Jews. The authors held in veneration by Egyptologists are Manetho and Herodotus. Manetho's ignorance as to the history of his own country is shown by Flavius Josephus; and Herodotus wrote his account of the Pyramids from hearsay. The priests who related the anecdotes concerning the kings Cheops and his brother Chephren, and the shepherd Philition, knew nothing themselves as to the real truth, for the whole account is in confusion, worse confounded by their stupendous ignorance.

The writings of these two authors have misled every Egyptologist. Had the Bible, the Jewish records called the Talmud, and Flavius Josephus been studied instead, Egyptologists would have learnt the truth, and nothing but the truth, and their time and labour would have been rewarded most satisfactorily. The reader of this work will find extracts

in the later portion of it, which will repay the trouble of perusal.

The testimony of recent travellers proves the reality of the existence of granaries in Babylon, and the indisputable fact that the Pyramids were built in imitation of them. The following is an instance :-*

"On the 9th December 1811 Mr. Rich made an expedition to the Birs-i-Nimrúd. He found vestiges of mounds all round it to a considerable extent, and the country traversed by canals in every direction. The soil round it is sandy. Close to the Birs, or at about a hundred yards from it, and parallel with its southern front, is a high mound, almost equal in size to that of the Kasr.

"The Birs,' says he, 'is an enormous mound. At the north end it rises, and there is an immense brick wall, thirty-seven feet high and twenty-eight in breadth, upon it. This wall is not in the centre of the north summit of the mound, but appears to have formed the southern face of it. The other parts of the summit are covered by huge fragments of brickwork, tumbled confusedly together; and what is most extraordinary is that they are partly converted into a solid vitrified mass. The layers are in many parts perfectly distinguishable; but the whole of these lumps seem to have undergone the action of fire. Several lumps of the same matter have rolled down, and remain partly on the side of the mound and partly in the plain. The large wall on the southern face of the summit is built of burnt bricks, with writing on them, and so close together that no cement is discoverable between the layers. Small * W. T. W. Vaux, Nineveh and Persepolis.

square apertures are left, which go quite through the building, and are arranged in a kind of quincunx form. Down the face of the wall the bricks have been separated, leaving a large crack. On the side towards the mound of Ibrahim Khalil, the mound slopes gradually down, and up nearly half its height. is a flat road running round this part of it, twenty of my paces broad.

"From this the mound slopes more gradually to the plain or valley between it and the mound of Ibrahím Khalil, and is worn into deep ravines or furrows, like the Mujelibé. On the other or north face of this pile it slopes down more abruptly at once into the plain, with only hollows or paths round it, the road before mentioned, which from that part appears to surround the building, losing itself before it reaches this. On the north-west face, where it also slopes down into the plain, are vestiges of building in the side, exactly similar in appearance and construction to the wall on the top, with the holes or apertures which are mentioned in the description of that. At foot of all is, seemingly, a flat base of greater extent, but very little raised above the level of the plain. The whole sides of the mound are covered with pieces of brick, both burnt and unburnt, bitumen, pebbles, spar, black stone, the same sand or limestone which covers the canal at the Kasr, and even fragments of white marble. No reeds were to be seen in any part of the building, though I saw one or two specimens of burnt bricks which evidently had reeds in their composition, and some had the impression of reeds on their cement. I saw also several bricks which were thickly coated with bitu

men on their lower face. In the lowest part of the mound opposite Ibrahim Khalil, the mounds are most evidently composed of unburnt bricks, the layers being in great measure visible. This would lead one to suppose that it was not originally part of the great pile, were not specimens of this kind of bricks found in it also.

"The circumference of the base-not the low one -is 762 yards. The whole height of it, from this measured base to the summit of the tower or wall, is 235 feet; but there can be no doubt that it was much higher. The form is more oblong than I found the longest side to be 248 of my paces. Fortunately for the preservation of the ruin, it is too far from the Euphrates for the Arabs to think it worth their while to excavate for bricks; while they are so closely joined together, that it is impossible to procure them quite unbroken.'

square.

"Mr. Rich will not admit this tower to be that of Belus, because, according to his view, it is on the wrong side of the river.

"The whole height of the Birs-i-Nimrúd above the plain to the summit of the brick wall is 235 feet. The brick wall itself, which stands on the edge of the summit, and was undoubtedly the face of another stage, is 37 feet high. In the side of the pile, a little below its summit, is very clearly to be seen part of another brick wall, precisely resembling the fragment which crowns the summit, and still encasing and supporting its part of the mound. This is clearly indicative of another stage of greater

extent.

"Without forming any conjecture as to what