"
To the query in regard to the means of conveyance, he answers, that at
that remote period sailing ships were in common use,--as is proved by
representations of them found in Egyptian tombs,--although they were
afterwards superseded by galleys propelled by oars alone. The reason
assigned by Mr. Wilson for this change makes a valuable addition to the
stores of Biblical commentary. "The Greeks," he says, "appear to have
been selected from their imitative powers, to perpetuate such of the
arts and civilization of the elder world, as were to be preserved from
that decree of extermination, pronounced by the Almighty against its
nations. _Commerce had been the chief cause of the total demoralization
of antiquity_, and of this, they were permitted to preserve only a boat
navigation." Coeval with the decline of commerce and the extermination
of sailing ships was the cessation of this Phoenician emigration to
America. The colonists, having no longer any communication with the
mother country, soon dwindled away and perished, in accordance with a
well-known law of Nature. "Extinction is the doom of every immigrant
population in an uncongenial climate (habitat) when migration ceases to
keep up and renew the original stock.
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