This opinion of the earth being a round plain was common to all the nations of antiquity; and it was only corrected when Eratosthenes, the Alexandrian astronomer, showed, from the sun at the same moment throwing shadows of different lengths at towns differing in latitude, that it was a ball. This was in the second century B.C. But even then the new opinion was by no means generally received, and was firmly rejected by the theologians. (See Note on Gen. ii. 10.)

PROVERBS, XVII. 19.

“He that exalteth his gate seeketh destruction."

We have no ancient Jewish buildings remaining, but we may reasonably suppose that they were, in part, built upon the Egyptian plan. This elevation of the temple of Kalabshe, in Nubia, shows us the low, covered rooms, with a portico rather higher than the main building. The building is enclosed within a wall, which adds a court-yard in front of the portico; and at the entrance of this court-yard is a gateway, which is again more lofty than the portico to which it leads. From our text we learn that private

houses were sometimes so built ostentatiously, with a lofty gateway, which would naturally breed jealousy in the neighbours, and invite the visits of the tax-gatherer; and, in a time when law was weak and property very unsafe, might easily lead to the ruin of its owner. Against such boastful architecture, in any private house, our text wisely warns the reader.

ISAIAH, XI. 15, 16.

"And the Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with His mighty wind shall He shake His hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dryshod. And there shall be an highway for the remnant of His people, which shall be left from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.”

A Map of part of Lower Egypt, with the towns mentioned by the prophet, showing the tongue of the Red Sea as now cut off by the sands, and called the Bitter Lake, and showing the spot where the Israelites under Moses crossed the sea, now a dry passage between the two

waters.

1. Migdol, or Magdolon.

2. Tahpenes, or Daphnæ.

3. On, Onion, or Vicus Judeorum.

4. Rameses, Bethshemish, or Heliopolis.

Of these the first three, together with Shur and Hahiroth, were probably the five in which the language of Canaan was spoken (chap. xix. 18). On, or Onion, called Aven, or vanity, in Ezek. xxx. 17, by the addition of a letter, seems to have been that called by Isaiah the City of Destruction. By these reproachful names the two prophets meant, perhaps, to blame the altar which was

erected to Jehovah, in rivalry to that in Jerusalem, and in opposition to the command in the Mosaic law that in Jerusalem alone should there be an altar.

When the writers of the Septuagint the Alexandrian translation of the Bible-say that On meant Heliopolis, and change the words of Isa. xix. 18, from the City of Destruction into the City of Righteousness, we are inclined to distrust their truthfulness, and to think they wished to screen their city Onion and their altar from the reproach of the prophets.

ISAIAH, XVIII. 1.

"Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia."

More correctly translated;

Woe to the land of the winged Tsaltsal, [or spear fly], which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia.

Tsaltsal may be translated a Spear; and the word is so used in Job xli. 7. Hence this fly, the scourge of Abys sinia, probably received its name from the three spears with which its mouth is armed, two on the upper jaw,

and

one on the lower. In order to distinguish the insect from the metal spear, it is here called the winged Tsaltsal.

Bruce in his travels describes it as so formidable to camels, horses, mules, and even elephants, that beasts of burden cannot live in the fertile parts of Abyssinia, and fly to the desert to avoid it. One of the curses threatened upon Judea, in Deut. xxviii. 42, is that the Tsaltsal-fly shall take possession of the trees and fruit; and hence it would seem that the writer was not well acquainted with the insect, as it does not live upon vegetables. It is also the Fly spoken of in Isaiah, vii. 18; though it is not there called by its name. The prophet says, "In that day Jehovah shall whistle for the fly that is in the uttermost parts of the rivers of Egypt, and for the Bee that is in the land in the land of Assyria," meaning for the Egyptian and Assyrian armies.

We are indebted to Mr. Margoliouth for this correction and explanation of a passage in Isaiah, that had hitherto baffled the critics.

Dr. Livingstone brought home the same fly from South Africa, under the name of Tsetse; and it is from his book that our drawing is copied. By the side of the Fly is an enlarged drawing of its head and mouth.