Here, having settled down, they built a city and a tower, using brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar—just as they are proved to have done from the remains of cities found in the country at the present day. That Babylon was the site of the first settlement of the nature of a city is conceivable, and it is very possible that the first tower in Babylonia, which in later times had many towers, as had also Assyria, was situated in that ancient city. Everything points, therefore, to the correctness of the statements made in this portion of the sacred narrative. According to native tradition, however (and this seems to be supported by the statements in ch. x. 10), there were other important cities on the Babylonian plain of almost equal antiquity, namely, Erech, Akkad, and Calneh, which last is identified with Niffer (see p. 126). Notwithstanding the extensive ruins, proof of the same remote date for Babylon will doubtless be difficult to obtain, on account of the country around and a large portion of the site of the city being so marshy. The result of this condition of things will in all probability be, that very few remains of a really ancient date will be discovered in a condition to render services to archæology. To this must also be added the fact, that the city, being the capital for some thousands of years, underwent many changes at the hands of its various kings, partly from the necessity of keeping in good repair the many comparatively perishable brick monuments that the city contained, and partly from a desire to add more to the glories of the city than any of their predecessors had done. “And they said, Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, and its top (lit. head) shall be in the heavens.” To all appearance, this means simply that they would build a very high structure,—to many a student of the sacred text it has seemed that the writer only intended to say, that the tower (_migdol_) that they were about to build was to be very high. The mountains of Elam were not so very far off, and travellers from that part would have been able to assure them that the heavens would not be appreciably nearer on account of their being a few hundred cubits above the surface of the earth, even if traditions of their fathers’ wanderings had not assured them of the same thing. They wished simply to make them a name and a rallying-point, “lest,” as the sacred text has it, “we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” And here a few remarks upon the temple-towers of the Babylonians might not be out of place.