the cities of Memphis and Diospolis. Phut penetrated into the heart of Africa, with his followers, about the same time; and his youngest son, Canaan, built the cities of Hebron and Zoan, in the land called after his own name, immediately after the dispersion.

Such were the situations chosen by Ham and his sons for the seat of their respective governments. His grandsons were also assiduously employed in promoting the great work of dispersion. Nimrod, the son of Cush, retired from Babel or Babylon, to avoid the inundations with which that city was annoyed; built the city of Nineveh, and founded the great Assyrian Empire. The other descendants of Cush spread over Arabia Felix, and Ethiopia. The sons of Mizraim established so many nations known by their names in Lower Egypt. The Ludim, or Lybians; the Anamim, or inhabitants of Delta; the Pathrusim, or inhabitants of Thebais; and the Caphtorim. Naphtuhim settled at Memphis in Upper Egypt; and Philistim planted the country between Canaan and the Mediterranean sea; and his descendants were the Philistines. Phut peopled the northern borders of the Persian Gulf, and the children of Canaan settled in Phoenicia. Sidon built a city and called it by his own name; his other sons founded nations known by their respective names,

which were afterwards destroyed by the children of Israel.

"The posterity of Japheth inhabit Europe, Asia Minor, Media, a part of Armenia, Iberia, Albania, the vast regions of the north, which formerly the Scythians, but now the Tartars, possess: to say nothing of the New World (America), into which, it is most probable, they migrated by the straits of Anian.”*

Japheth led his colony into Arcadia, and they were afterwards named the Pelasgi,t because their principal migrations were performed by sea (λayos). Not long after this, the Sicyonian kingdom in the same region, was founded by Ægialeus, in whose reign the oracle of Dodona was set up by an Egyptian priestess, who had been taken captive by the Phoenicians and sold into Greece. Thus early was Masonry prostituted amongst the posterity of Japheth. Gomer, Magog, Tubal, and Meshech dispersed with their colonies to the north part of Syria. Their chief city was called Magog, and afterwards Hierapolis, or the sacred city. Askanez, the son of Gomer, established the kingdom of Armenia, and probably Phrygia. Togarmoth, another of his sons, placed

*Bochart Phaleg. 1. 3, c. 1.

Boch. Phaleg. 1. 3. c. 9.

+ Cumb. Orig.

himself near the country planted by his father. Javan was king of the Ionians, afterwards called the Athenians, and Greece; his son Elishah reigned in Peloponessus; whose descendants were celebrated for the blue, purple, and crimson dye.* Tarshish retired into Spain; his posterity traded in silver, iron, tin, and lead.† Kittein reigned in a part of Italy; the excellence of his posterity was chiefly in works of ivory. Dodanim advanced farther north, and took possession of France; and hence Great Britain and the northern part of Europe were peopled.§

Shem settled in Salem, and was afterwards its monarch, under the name of Melchizedek. He lived to an old age, and preserved the principles of Masonry amongst his descendants, until he ultimately committed them unsullied into the custody of Abraham, who was upwards of one hundred and fifty years old when Shem died. His posterity spread over the vast continent of Asia, except such part as had already been colonized by Noah, and amongst a certain select portion of his descendants, the knowledge of Masonry was never wholly lost.

Elam planted Persia, which soon became a great and flourishing nation. Ashur, after building Ur of the Chaldees, which became the residence of

* Ezek. xxvii, 7.

+ Ibid. 12.

Ibid. 6. 5 Bochart.

L

his brother Arphaxad, succeeded Nimrod in the government of Assyria, which was so named after him; and continued for many successive centuries in the plenitude of its vigour. Arphaxad settled with his colony in Ur of the Chaldees, which was situated in Mesopotamia; and here his descendants, deluded by the fascinations of the Cabiric rites, sunk into idolatry, and renounced the practice of Masonry altogether. Lud was the planter of the Lydians in Asia Minor. Aram planted some part of Syria, but the particular situation of his colony is uncertain.

Eber was the father of God's chosen people the Hebrews, to whose custody the sacred oracles were afterwards committed, and who preserved a knowledge of HIS NAME when all the rest of the world were polluted with the grossest defilements of idolatry. His son Joktan led a colony beyond Mount Mesha; and his thirteen sons spread over Mount Sephar, and penetrated into India; but Peleg and his descendants continued at Ur, and lived amongst the idolatrous Chaldeans, until the time of Terah the father of Abraham, when the Chaldeans drove them out of their land, and wrested their possessions from them, because they openly renounced the worship of idols, and returned to their allegiance to the true God.

The Phliasians had a temple without an idol, or any visible object of adoration, for which they professed to have a special reason, but asserted that it was incommunicable.* Here then we have a testimony that some traces of our science were visible in a Grecian city, amongst the posterity of Shem for Phlius was built by Haram, the elder brother of Abraham; and perhaps this small tract in Peloponessus was the only part of Greece where any part of Shem's posterity settled. This peninsula had been very early corrupted, for the mysteries of the Cabiri were established there by Magog or his immediate descendants, which paved the way for the worship of idols; and this worship is the most certain test of the deterioration of ancient Masonry, which inculcated as an indispensable duty the worship of one God, unconnected with any visible symbol.

Thus were the different quarters of the world peopled by the descendants of Noah, the patriarch himself founding the empire of China; and thus was our science disseminated and spread over the earth. Its spirit, amongst many of these nations, continued to invigorate the minds of men, and it sunk into oblivion by gradual and almost imperceptible degrees; amongst others, more bold and enterprizing, it served only as a

*Pausan. Corinth.