332 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



TRADITIONS OF THE DELUGE FROM ASSYRIAN TABLETS. 



A paper read by Mr. Smith, of the British Museum, upon 

 certain Assyrian tablets, containing the text of the deluge, 

 and belonging to a period 668 years before Christ, has caused 

 great interest among archreologists. The tablets themselves 

 date from the reign of Assurbanipal, and are copies of more 

 ancient tablets, supposed to be of the date of 1600 B.C. This 

 forms j>art of a series of legends belonging to the reign of a 

 king of the name of Izdubar. This personage is supposed to 

 have had an interview with a being called Sisit, who, in an- 

 swer to a question from Izdubar, relates the story of the flood. 

 This narrative is strikingly similar to that of the Noachian 

 deluge ; so close, indeed, as to render it more than probable 

 that we have here the veritable tradition of that catastrophe, 

 such as must have been handed down by its survivors. 15 

 A, December 7, 1872, 736. 



MIGRATIONS OF THE CALIFORNIA GRAY WHALE. 



A specimen which is interesting as throwing some light on 

 the migrations of whales has been recently received from Mr. 

 "W. H. Dall by the Smithsonian Institution. It is the bone 

 or ivory portion of the head of an Esquimau harpoon, which 

 is labeled as having been taken out of a California gray 

 whale (Rhachianectes glaucus, Coj^e) in Scammon's Lagoon, 

 on the Lower California coast, one of the great breeding lo- 

 calities of this species. The weapon had evidently been lost 

 by some Esquimau whaleman on the coast of Alaska or the 

 Aleutian Islands (probably the latter), and was recovered again 

 in the semi-tropical waters of the western shores of Mexico. 



OBJECTS FROM THE FLORIDA MOUNDS. 



Professor "Wy man calls attention to the similarity between 

 the St. John's River, of Florida, and the Nile, in respect to an 

 annual overflow of the reservoirs at the head waters, and a 

 consequent rise of the streams lower down. By reference to 

 the rain-chart recently published by the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion, it will be found that during the summer season the head 

 waters of the St. John's are in the region of maximum rain- 

 fall, embracing as they do numerous large lakes and swamps, 

 which become filled, and occasionally produce quite a flood. 



