At least eighteen hundred years before the Christian Era, descendants of Joktan, called Sabæans and afterward Himyarites, established themselves in southwestern Arabia; but not until about 800 B.C. do they appear to have gained permanent dominion over the neighboring tribes. Inscriptions in their language, the Sabæan, a Semitic tongue closely related to the Arabic, if not sufficiently like it to be called by the same name, have been found in the lower part of the Arabian peninsula on walls, tombs, dikes, and bronze tablets. These are the oldest known Arabic writings, and are believed by scholars to date between the 8th century B.C. and the 4th century A.D. Gems have also been discovered, inscribed with these same characters. PHŒNICIAN LITERATURE. =Its Lost Treasures.=—In the most ancient records, the narrow strip of coast between the Lib’anus Mountains and the Mediterranean was recognized as an important centre of civilization. Its cities were seats of art and commerce; Africa, Sicily, and Spain, were dotted with its colonies and trading-stations; the sails of its merchantmen sparkled on every sea; its language was known throughout the ancient world. It cannot be that a nation so advanced in knowledge was without a literature; and if works on their philosophy and religion, on history, geography, navigation, and agriculture, didactic poems and love-songs, constitute a literature, vast indeed was that of the Phœnicians. No department of science or belles-lettres appears to have been overlooked by their authors. The famous “Book City,” Kir´jath-Se´pher, which, during the conquest of Canaan, was taken by Othniel the future Judge, is thought to have been a Phœnician town. Its name implies that it was a repository of books, probably public records and works on law—perhaps an Athens to the nations of Canaan, whither their youth flocked to consult its libraries and receive instruction at its academies. Its valuable collection of manuscripts was doubtless committed to the flames by the Hebrew conqueror. In like manner, the whole constellation of Phœnician hymns, and lyrics, and prose pieces, has become extinct, except a lonely star left here and there in the works of foreign authors; or a faint light glimmering on some coin or tablet, gem or tombstone. The only important Phœnician writer known to us is Sanchoni´athon. Fragments of his History, written perhaps in the fourteenth century B.C., have survived through a Greek translation. In accounting for the origin of the universe, Sanchoniathon taught the theory of evolution, that “from certain animals not having sensation, intelligent animals were produced.”