Note 116 — LETTER XXXIX.

Burckhardt must have been mistaken when (Trav. in Syr., p. 5) he states that the tomb of Noah was only 10 feet long, although the same statement is repeated by Schubert (Reise in das Morgenland, vol. iii., p. 340). It is well known how frequently the number 40 is found employed by the Hebrews as an indeterminate multiple. The same custom seems to have been peculiar to all Semetic nations; it may at least be pointed out frequently, and at all periods, among the Phœnicians and Arabians; even the numerical words for 4 and 40 in these languages indicate the universal idea of multitude. See my Sprachvergleichenden Abhandlungen, Berlin, 1836, p. 104, 139, and the Chronologie der Ægypter, vol. i, p. 15.