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I have told how the Bible sometimes offers its knowledge in the manner of a puzzler testing his audience. A simple glance at the map shows that it is quite impossible for rivers to flow from the same source to both Ethiopia and Assyria, as the two lands are nearly completely divided by ocean, being connected only by a narrow stretch of the peninsula of Sinai, itself a notorious desert. The more I considered the matter, the more I came to conclude that the passage could signify only one thing, and I was astonished that I had never realized it before.
Look elsewhere
, the Scriptures were urging.
Look to some other place altogether
. But where?
To the east of Assyria
. Suddenly all was dazzlingly clear. East of Assyria? Why not far to the east, as far even as Tasmania?
    This was not proof, of course. My next step was to try to discover the names of the rivers of that distant island. I sought the aboriginal names, their replacements by white settlers being far too recent, though these proved far from easy to obtain, the aborigines having been, most unfortunately, all but extinguished. My interest being whetted, however, I would accept no discouragement but persevered, writing to any men I could think of who might have spent time in that distant colony, and urging them, if they could not help me themselves, to provide the names of others who might. Little by little names began to come, and looking upon these, I quickly became struck by what I saw. They were not identical to those of the Bible—with the hazards of time it was inevitable that changes in pronunciation would have occurred—but still I found myself nothing less than amazed.
B IBLICAL N AME
A BORIGINAL N AME
Euphrates
Ghe Pyrrenne
Gihon
Gonovar
Pihon
Pewunger
Hiddekel
Liddywydeve
    Where, one might ask, do these four rivers originate? Why, in exactly the region of mountain wilderness that my farming friend had glimpsed from afar!
    Naturally I felt I had no choice but to make these findings available to the public. Thus appeared my third pamphlet:
A proof against the atheisms of Geology: the truth of the chronology of the Bible finally and conclusively shown
. I suppose I had anticipated the piece might attract a response and yet the scale of this quite took me aback. All at once our home was no longer the remote haven it had been, and frequently the postman was quite weighed down with correspondence. Callers would arrive, sometimes unannounced, one from as far as Edinburgh. Even the local population began to regard us with a certain dour curiosity, while my wife, who had never previously shown great interest in my geological pursuit, began quite to enjoy this little fame we had discovered.
    The letters were not, sad to say, all supportive. I was especially wounded by the fact that, for the first time, I found fellow churchmen ranged against me, obstinate in their reluctance to abandon their conviction that Eden lay in the Holy Land. For every critical letter received, however, I had at least one other in support. What was more, a great number of these asked the same excited question, a question which, oddly enough, had never occurred to me till then:
when was an expedition planned for Van Diemen’s Land?
There was no doubting its pertinence, as the whole great subject could never be finally proved except by such a means. While I little considered this to be my own concern, feeling my role was that of a humble forger of ideas rather than explorer, I did write to the Geographical Society, to alert them to this vital issue. In the event, however, they showed only a most disappointing interest, dazzled, as they were, by curiosity to find the source of that dreary river the Nile. Altogether the matter would likely have progressed no further, had not aletter arrived at the rectory one fine Thursday morning, enclosed within it a train ticket to London.
    Dear Mr. Wilson,

Your pamphlet I have read. Your notions I applaud. Eden
must
be found. I believe I may be the man to make