whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language, and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand each other's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth. This important event, recorded in Gen. xi., occurred about 2160 years before Christ, and was the origin of the division of the human family into distinct nations.
THE SONS OF NOAH.
The sons of Noah who went forth out of the ark, were Shem, Ham and Japhet—and of them was the whole earth peopled.
To the descendants of Ham, I have generally given the name of Ethiopians—blacks with frizzled or curly hair. The descendants of Shem were denominated Assyrians and Syrians—blacks with long straight hair.
Shem had five sons—Elam, Ashur, Arphaxad, Aram and Laud—who inhabited the land from the Euphrates to the Indian Ocean and Abyssinia.
Elam left a posterity called Elarnites—the ancestors of the Persians.
Ashur lived at the city of Nineveh, and named his subjects Assyrians, who became the most fortunate nation.
Arphaxad named the Arphaxadites, now called the Chaldeans.
From Aram sprang the Aramites, whom the Greeks call Syrians.
Laud founded the Ladites, who are now called the Lydians.
Aram had four sons—Uz, Ul, Gather and Mesa.
Uz founded Trachonitis and Damascus—between Palestine and Celosyria.
Ul founded Armenia; and from Gather sprang the Bactrians.
