If the Tower of Babel was built over the mouth of Hell it would be wise to explore its site and make proper excavations, so as to settle the geography and physical character of the bottomless-pit. The Churches are sadly in want of a little information about hell, and here is an opportunity for them to acquire it, We hope the explorers will all be selected for their extreme piety, so that they may be as fire-proof as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and happily escape cremation. Because the Lord "did there confound their language" the place was "called Babel." The Hebrew root, _balal_ to confound, is not, however, that from which the word "Babel" is derived, It is a compound of "Bel," and may mean the "House of Bel," "Court of Bel," or "Gate of Bel." Some, including Professor Rawlinson, suppose it be a compound of "El" or "il," in which case "Bab-El" means the "Gate of God." It is evident that the story of the Tower of Babal was borrowed by the Jehovist author of this part of Genesis from the tradition of the famous unfinished Temple of Belus, one of the wonders of antiquity. "Birs Nimroud" is thus described by Kalisch:-- "The huge heap, in which bricks, stone, marble, and basalt, are irregularly mixed, covers a surface of 49,000 feet; while the chief mound is nearly 300 feet high, and from 200 to 400 feet in width, commanding an extensive view over a country of utter desolation. The Tower consisted of seven distinct stages or square platforms, built of kiln-burnt bricks, each about twenty feet high, gradually diminishing in diameter. The upper part of the brickwork has a vitrefied appearance; for it is supposed that the Babylonians, in order to render their edifices more durable, submitted them to the heat of the furnace; and large fragments of such vitrefied and calcined materials are also intermixed with the rubbish at the base. This circumstance may have given rise to, or at least countenanced, the legend of the destruction of the Tower by heavenly fire, still extensively adopted among the Arabians. The terraces were devoted to the planets, and were differently colored in accordance with the notions of Sabæan astrology--the lowest, Saturn's, _black_; the second, Jupiter's, _orange_; the third, Mars, _red_; the fourth, the Sun's, _yellow_; the fifth, Venus's, _white_; the sixth, Mercury's, _blue_; the seventh, the Moon's, _green_. Merodach-adan-akhi is stated to have begun it B.C. 1100. It was finished five centuries afterwards by Nebuchadnezzar, who left a part of its history on two cylinders, which have lately been excavated on the spot, and thus deciphered by Rawlinson. 'The building, named the Planisphere, which was the wonder of Babylon, I have made and finished. With bricks, enriched with lapis lazuli, I have exalted its head. Behold now the building, named "The Stages of the Seven Spheres," which was the wonder of Borsippa, had been built by a former king. He had completed forty-two cubits of height: but he did not finish the head.