Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1896-04-29
100000 or 2O,OOO,OOO years for the
age of the sun, as calculated by Helm
holtz, Newcomb and Kelvin.
THE GARDEN OF EDEN.

holtz, Newcomb and Kelvin.
THE 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 pyr-
amid and to elicit from the ancient re-
ligious books of the Nile land, and es-
pecially frun the so-called Book of the
Dead, a clue to the creed of early
Egypt. In the volumes embodying the
outcome of his researches he arrives
at the interesting conclusion regard
ing the simplicity and purity of the
oldest Egyptian faith, and discerns it
in u curious conformity, so far as the
main lines are concerned, to Christian
ity. That, to which, however, we
would at this time, invite particular
attention is to the assertion that his
readings in the sacred books of Egypt
bear out the record of Genises as to
the seat of the earthly paradise, and
that consequently, the cradle of the hu-
man race must be looked for in Africa
at some point in the watershed of the
Nile.
Let us mark the ground for this at
tempt at the new Identification of the
Garden of Eden. Adams points out
that in the region of the great lakes
are, as in the places described in Gen.
eses, the "heads" of four rivers which
Ego forth to water the whole country"
There beyond the Zambesi, lies the
land of gold, with its mines of un-
known antiquity, and bearing an
oborous herb, of which the hieroglyphic
name is betru, suggesting the original
of the Hebrew word betelu, converted
by the Greeks into bdellium. There is
the fountain 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 Euphrates.
What Mr.. Adams deems more strik-
ing still is the fact that in the east
ward 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 sceptre expressing dominion over
which was one Of the insignia Of the
Egyptian deity, Amen. From that gar
den flows single river, the Shari, ex-
actly as it is in the Scriptural account
the single river flowed in the midst to
water the garden, which was placed in
the eastward part of the immense
watershed of Eden. Thence, accord
ing to Mr.. Adams's theory, the stream
of human emigration found its way
along the line of least resistance to the
the fertile plains of Egypt. Probably
the seat of the most ancient civiliza-
ton in the world, diffusing itself from
the delta of the Nile, or along the
shores of the Mediterranean.
To a 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 mon
uments have been studied in the light
of astronomy there has been tenden-
cy to hold that civilization of Egypt
was derived from two sources of i'm
migration, the one situated in the Abys-
sinian highlands or elsewhere in the
watersheds of the Nile, the other In
Mesopotamia. It is thought, however,
that the northward stream of emi-
grafton was the earlier. Morever,
many Assyriologists concur in think
ing that ancient Chald@a was princi-
pally indebted for civilizing agencies to
emigrants coming by way of the Per-
sian gulf, from Abyssinia or southwest
Arabia. It should be noted that sino-
logues are now disposed to trace
the origin of Chinese civilization to
emigrants from Chaldea, whose own
culture, as. we have said, is believed
by many to be a derivative. So there
is something like consensus of conjec-
ture pointing to the watershed Nile
as the cradle of civilized man.-New
York Sun.