The natural history of the Bible ; or, A description of all the quadrupeds, birds, fishes, reptiles, and insects, trees, plants, flowers, gums, and precious stones, mentioned in the sacred scriptures: Collected from the best authorities, and alphabetically arranged / by Thaddeus Mason Harris.

  • Thaddeus Mason Harris
Date:
1824
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The natural history of the Bible ; or, A description of all the quadrupeds, birds, fishes, reptiles, and insects, trees, plants, flowers, gums, and precious stones, mentioned in the sacred scriptures: Collected from the best authorities, and alphabetically arranged / by Thaddeus Mason Harris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    84/474 page 44
    * 44 - THE NATURAL HISTORY in countries bordering on Egypt, where the scene of this Beem is placed. * | believe that it is Weetovi admitted that the leviathan is the crocodile ; his fellow, then, could not be the elephant, which was not known in Egypt; was not, at least, peculiar to that country, ' though inhabiting the interior of Africa. * |f we had any Egyptian poems, or even writings come down to us, we might possess a chance of meeting in them something to guide our inquiries; but of these we are totally deprived. We however may esteem ourselves fortunate, that by means of Egyptian representations we can determine ‘this question, and identify the animal. . * In the great work published under the authority of the king of Naples, containing prints from antiquities found in Herculaneum, are some pictures of Egyptian landscapes, in which are figures of the ‘crocodile lying among the reeds, and of the Hippopotamus browsing on the aquatic plants of an island ??.. And in that famous piece of antiquity, commonly called the * Pranestine pavement,” the crocodile aud river-horse are associated ?! ; as they are also on the base of the famous statue of the Nile. The hippopotamus is nearly as large as the rhinoceros. The male has been found seventeen feet in length, fifteen in circum- ference, and seven in height. ‘The head is enormously large, and the jaws extend upwards two feet, and are armed with four cut- ting teeth, each of which is twelve inches in length. The body is of a lightish colour, thinly covered with hair. The legs are three feet long. Though amphibious, the hoofs, which are quadrifid, are unconnected with membranes. The hide is so thick and tough as to resist the edge of a sword or sabre. Although an inhabitant of the waters, the hippopotamus is well known to breathe air like land animals. On land indeed he ?? Scripture Illustr. in addition to Calmet, No. lxv. ?! This most curious and valuable piece of antiquity was found in the ruins of the Temple of Fortune at Palestine, the ancient Preneste, about twenty-one miles from Rome. It is formed of small stones of diíferent colours, disposed with such art and neatness as to make it comparable to some of the finest paint- ings It represents Egypt and a part of Ethiopia; though not laid down in a geographical manner, nor according to the rules of perspective. Jt exhibits tracts of land, mountains, valleys, branches of the Nile, lakes, quadrupeds, and fish of various ‘kinds, and a great many birds. Several of the beasts have names [written near them in Greek letters] not found in historians; though it is pro- bable that some of these are corrupted through the ignorance of copyists. It represents the huntsmen and fishermen, galleys, boats, men, and women, in diffe- rent dresses, great and small buildings of different kinds, obelisks, arbours, trees, and plants, with a great variety of the most curious particulars, relative to the times in which it was formed ; and presents us with a greater number of objects, relative to the civil and natural history of Egypt and Ethiopia than are any - where else to be met with. : - . A history of this most instructive piece of antiquity is to be found in Mont- faucon’s Antiquities, vol. xiv. in Dr. Shaw's Travels, p. 493—492. edit. 2. Ato. with an elaborate explication, and a large plate; and in Harmer's Observations, vol. 4. Dr. Adam Clarke's edition, p. 63—90.
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