Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1895-09-04
GARDEN OF EDEN.

An English Psychologist. Mr.. w.
Marsham Adams, has been for some
time engaged in an endeavor to solve
the structural enigma of the great
pyramid and to elicit from the ancient
religious books of the Nile land, and
especially from the so-called Book of
the Dead, clew to the creed of early
Egypt. In the volumes embodying
the outcome of his researches he arrives
at interesting conclusions regarding
the simplicity and purity of the Oldest
Egyptian faith. and discerns in it
curious conformity, so far as the main
lines are concerned, to Christianity.
That to which, however, we would at
this time invite particular attention is
the assertion that his readings in the
sacred books of Egypt bear out the re
cord of Genesis as to the seat of the
earthly paradise, and that. consequent
ly, the cradle of the human race must
be looked for in Africa at some point
in the watershed of the Nile.
Let us mark the grounds for this
attempt at new Identification of the
Garden of Eden. Mr.. Adams points
out that in the region of the great lakes
there are, as in the place described in
Genesis, the "heads'' of four rivers
which go forth to water the whole
country There, beyond the Zam-
best, lies the land of gold. with it's
mines of unknown antiquity, and
bearing an odorous herb, of which the
hireoglyphic name is "betru, suggest
ing the original of the Hebrew word
"betelu," converted by the Greeks into
''bdellium - There is the fountains
of the winding Niger. and there the
source of the inundating Nile. There.
too. is the Congo, the river of life. !"
corresponding to the Hebrew Perth
(fruitfuD, transformed by the Greeks
into the Euphrates.
What Mr.. Adams deems more strik.
ing still is the fact that in the eastward
portion of this great basin lies the
garden of paradise, 5000 square miles
in area, described in glowing terms by
Stanley as full Of animal life, the
scepter expressing dominion over which
was one of the insignia of the Egyptian
deity Amen. From that garden flows
a single river. the Shari, exactly as in
the Scriptural account the single river
flowed in the midst to water the
garden, which was placed in the east
ward part of the immense watershed of
Eden. Thence, according to Mr..
Adams theory. the stream of human
emigration found its way along the
line of least resistance to the fertile
plains of Egypt. probably the seat of
the most ancient civilization in the
world. diffusing itself from the delta
of the Nile along the shores of the
Mediterranean.
To certain extent the ground was
prepared for the effort to connect the
record of Genesis primarily with old
Egyptian rather than with the Chal-
daic traditions. Since Egyptian monu-
ments have been studied in the light
of astronomy there has been tendency
to hold that the civilization of Egypt
was derived from two sources of emil
grafton, the one situated in the Ably
sinian highlands or elsewhere in the
watershed of the Nile, the other in
Mesopotamia. 1t is thought, how
ever. that the northward stream of
emigration was the earlier. More
over. many Assyriologists concur in
thinking that ancient Chald9a was
principally indebted for ciyilizing
agencies to emigrants coming by way
of the Persian Gulf, from Abyssinia or
southwest Arabia. 1t should also be
noted that sinologues are now disposed
to trace the origin of Chinese civiliza-
ton to emigrants from Chaldaa,
whose own culture. as we have said, is
believed by many to be derivative.
So that there is something like con-
census of conjecture pointing to the
watershed of the Nile as the cradle of