Page:An Essay on the Age and Antiquity of the Book of Nabathaean Agriculture.djvu/26

peared at first sight altogether paradoxical. Surprised at the omission, in the midst of ample information as to the religions of Asia, of one word which directly or indirectly bore reference to Christianity; struck by the perfection of the agricultural theories which are developed in every page; and not being able to find any one period in Babylonian history after Alexander where such prosperity could correctly be placed,—remarking: 1st, that the author speaks of Babylon as being, in his own day, a flourishing city, and the seat of the principal religion of the East; 2nd, that he speaks of Nineveh as a city still in existence; 3rd, that among the cities situated in Babylon and the neighbouring provinces, he makes no mention of Seleucia, Apamea, Ctesiphon, and other cities founded by the Seleucides, the Arsacides, the Sassanides; and not recognising the possibility that, at a time when that vast cyclopædia of agriculture was written, Babylon could be under a foreign yoke, M. Quatremære finds himself compelled to fix