BITUMEN, a fat, combustible, oily matter, to be found in many places, particularly about Babylon, and in Judea, in the lake Asphaltites, or the Dead-Sea1. Noah Gen. vi. 14. Gen. xi. 3.did over the Ark with Bitumen, and the Builders of the Tower of Babel made use of this matter for a cement. The little vessel also wherein Moses was exposed, near to the banks of the river Nile, was Exod. ii. 3.daubed over with Bitumen.
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Footnotes
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Translators’ note. Demetrius, while he was encamped upon the Dead-Sea, observing the nature of this Bitumen, formed a project, whereby the royal Revenue might be encreased by it; this he laid before Antigonus, by whom it was ap- proved; and Jerom the Cardian sent to see it executed. But while he and his workmen were imployed there, the Arabi- ans fell upon them, and dispersed them, and the design was never after prosecuted, Diodor. Sic. l. 19. See Prid. Connect. &c. P. 1. B. viii. ↩