The attempts at identification of hell and purgatory have not been so numerous, perhaps because the subjects were not very attractive, except as the spite of men might think of them in reference to other people; but when we come to the terrestrial paradise, quite a crowd of attempts by every kind of writer to fix its position in any and every part of the globe is met with on every side. In the seventeenth century, under Louis XIV., Daniel Huet, Bishop of Avranches, gave great attention to the question, and collected every opinion that had been expressed upon it, with a view to arriving at some definite conclusion for himself. He was astonished at the number of writings and the diversity of the opinions they expressed. "Nothing," he says, "could show me better how little is really known about the situation of the terrestrial paradise than the differences in the opinions of those who have occupied themselves about the question. Some have placed it in the third heaven, some in the fourth, in the heaven of the moon, in the moon itself, on a mountain near the lunar heaven, in the middle region of the air, out of the earth, upon the earth, beneath the earth, in a place that is hidden and separated from man. It has been placed under the North Pole, in Tartary, or in the place now occupied by the Caspian Sea. Others placed it in the extreme south, in the land of fire. Others in the Levant, or on the borders of the Ganges, or in the Island of Ceylon, making the name India to be derived from Eden, the land where the paradise was situated. It has been placed in China, or in an inaccessible place beyond the Black Sea; by others in America, in Africa, beneath the equator, in the East, &c. &c." Notwithstanding this formidable array, the good bishop was bold enough to make his choice between them all. His opinion was that the dwelling-place of the first man was situated between the Tigris and Euphrates, above the place where they separate before falling into the Persian Gulf; and, founding this opinion on very extensive reading, he declared that of all his predecessors, Calvin had come nearest to the truth. Among the other authors of greater or less celebrity that have occupied themselves in this question, we may instance the following:-- Raban Maur (ninth century) believed that the terrestrial paradise was at the eastern extremity of the earth. He described the tree of life, and added that there was neither heat nor cold in that garden; that immense rivers of water nourished all the forest; and that the paradise was surrounded by a wall of fire, and its four rivers watered the earth. James of Vitry supposed Pison to come out of the terrestrial paradise. He describes also the garden of Eden; and, like all the cosmographers of the middle ages, he placed it in the most easterly portion of the world in an inaccessible place, and surrounded by a wall of fire, which rose up to heaven.