A GRASP OF GEOLOGIC TIME. 159 



confirmed by the cuneiform inscriptions of the Izdubar 

 legends, as deciphered by the late George Smith, a story 

 which must have had a common origin with the biblical 

 narrative. The sacred books of the Hindoos preserve the 

 record of a great deluge which occurred about the time . 

 of the Mosaic flood. Among the Chinese, also, are records 

 of one or more floods. Confucius represents the Emperor 

 Jas as exercising his authority or power in effecting the 

 retreat of a deluge which completely inundated the plains 

 and lesser hills, and washed the feet of the highest moun- 

 tains. We have no assurance that this was the same 

 deluge which exists in the mythology of Greece, but it 

 may have been. Thus Ovid, in his beautiful account of 

 the Deluge of Deucalion, says: 



" Jamque mare et tellus nullum discrimen habebant; 

 Omnia pontus erant. Deerant quoqiie littora ponto."* 



Even the Mosaic narrative of Noah, and the Chaldean 

 stor}^ of Xithuthrus, reappear in the Metamorphoses: 



"Jupiter, ut liquidis stagnaque paludibus orbem, 

 Et snperesse videt de tot modo millibus imum, 

 Et superesse videt de tot modo millibus unam, 

 Innocuos ambos, cultores numinis ambos, 

 Nubila disjecit."! 



This deluge was occasioned by the " opening of the 

 windows of heaven," and the breaking up of the '* foun- 

 tains of the great deep," or, in the highly poetical words 

 of the Metamorphoses^ Neptune, coming to the aid of Jove, 



Here is a translation for the unclassical reader; "Now sea and land pre- 

 sented no distinction. All places were sea; nor had the sea anywhere a shore." 



t '" Jupiter, when he sees the world covered with stagnant pools, and sees one 

 man surviving of so many thousands, and one woman surviving of so many thou- 

 sands, both sinless, both worshipers of divinity, disperses the clouda.'" 



