For the important fact has been overlooked that it is quite certain, that anciently, the joint stream, (Shatt-el-'Aráb), as it now is, did not exist. Though the Genesis narrative tells us of a junction _immediately outside_ the southern boundary of the Garden, the Euphrates channels and the Tigris branch (with part of the Euphrates water in it) flowed separately to the Persian Gulf. It is quite certain that, in the time of Alexander the Great, the mouths of the Euphrates and Tigris were a good day's journey apart. For this separate outflow there is the incontestable evidence of Pliny and other authors quoted by Professor Delitzsch. I may here also remark, that anciently the Persian Gulf extended much farther inland than it does now. In the time of Sennacherib, an inland arm of the sea extended so far, that a _naval_ expedition against Elam was possible; more than one hundred miles inland from the present sea-line. The extension was called N[=a]r Marratum. In Alexander's time, the city of Charax (now Mohamra) was founded close to the sea (that was in the fourth century B.C.). It is known from later histories, that shortly before the birth of our Saviour, the city was from fifty to one hundred and twenty Roman miles inland. The change is due to the "Delta," or alluvial formation at the mouth of the rivers. Turning, then, to the recent inquiries (published in 1881[1]) by Professor Fried. Delitzsch, it must be confessed that the results obtained are such as to completely avoid all the difficulties that beset the other explanations: yet we ought not to be too confident that it is a final or absolute explanation. A certain caution and reserve will still be wisely maintained on the subject. At any rate, they show that _an_ explanation, one that answers _all_ the conditions of the problem, _can_ be given; and that is a great thing. [Footnote 1: "Wo lag das Paradies" (Leipzig, 1881) is the title of the book.] [Footnote: Professor Friedrich Delitzsch is Professor of Assyriology in the University of Leipzig.]