ference to much more distant time (Exod. xiii. 5; Deut. vi. 20; Josh. iv. 6). It might be simply taken as afterwards. The circumstance of the speedy withering of the flowers and leaves of the keroa should not be slightly passed over; nor that of its present name, cicinum (pronouncing the c hard, like k), which is sufficiently near the kikiun of Jonah. The author of "Scripture Illustrated remarks, "as the history of Jonah expressly says, the Lord prepared this plant, no doubt we may conceive of it as an extraordinary one of its kind, remarkably rapid in its growth, remarkably hard in its stem, remarkably vigorous in its branches, and remarkable for the extensive spread of its leaves and the deep gloom of their shadow; and, after a certain duration, remarkable for a sudden withering, and a total uselessness to the impatient prophet." THE HEATH.- "He shall be like the heath in the desert," says the prophet, "he shall not see when good cometh ; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land” (Jer. xvii. 6.) And again,—“ Flee, save yourselves, and be like the heath in the wilderness" (ch. xlviii. 6.) But what plant is this heath? The Septuagint and the Vulgate say, a tamarisk"; others, 66 a leafless tree "; 66 and Parkhurst quotes from Mr. Taylor, "a blasted tree, stripped of its foliage." If it be a particular plant, he thinks the tamarisk as likely as any, because these trees have not much beauty to recommend them, their branches being produced in so traggling a manner, as not, by any art, to be rained up regularly; and their leaves are commonly hin upon their branches, and fall away in winter, o that there is nothing to recommend them but 121 66 their address. "But the question presents itself," says Mr. Taylor, Can the tamarisk live in a salt land? in parched places?" He thinks not, and therefore proposes to seek the Hebrew orur among the lichens, a species of plants which are the last productions of vegetation, under the severe cold of the frozen zone, and under the glowing heats of the equatorial deserts; so that it seems best qualified to endure parched places, and a salt land. Hasselquist mentions several kinds seen by him in Egypt, Arabia, and Syria, as does also Mr. Burckhardt, in the peninsula of Mount Sinai. BIBLICAL HELPS FOR ENGLISH READERS. VI. BIBLICAL NATURAL HISTORY. ZOOLOGY. BY WILLIAM CARPENTER, AUTHOR OF "THE GEOLOGY, ZOOLOGY, AND BOTANY OF THE BIBLE," |