iSo 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



conception out of the language both of 

 the Bible and of other confirmatory 

 traditions without being pressed to ac- 

 cept it with mathematical exactness. 

 The single point which I have made is, 

 that, in view of the great instability 

 of geological conditions which accom- 

 panied the close of the glacial period, 

 and during which man was in exist- 

 ence, it is unscientific to apply to that 

 period the standards with reference to 

 the rate of elevation and depression of 

 the earth's surface which apply to the 

 present. I have also called attention 

 anew to the unknown, but certainly ex- 

 tensive, destruction of life during the 

 closing stages of the glacial period, 

 and immediately after, in which man 

 may fairly be assumed to have shared 

 to a great extent. 



The alleged object of the flood, 

 namely, the destruction of the human 

 race, may then well have been accom- 

 plished by submergence limited to cen- 

 tral and western Asia, from which I 

 have brought much new evidence going 

 to show that at a very recent geological 

 period, indeed since man's existence, 

 there have been such changes of land 

 level as render it easier than before to 

 credit the existence of a great fact un- 

 derneath the widespread traditions 

 concerning a deluge in which the last 

 remnants of the human race, except 

 those saved by special arrangement, 

 were destroyed. 



G. Frederick Wright. 



It must be left to readers of the 

 Monthly to decide whether or not 

 Professor Wright answers the questions 

 addressed to him by our correspondent. 

 They were as follows: 



1. You say. Professor Wright, that 

 "The Paleolithic man of science maj- 

 well be the Antediluvian man of 

 Genesis." Was Tubal Cain, 'an in- 

 structor of every artificer in brass and 

 iron,' an antediluvian man, and, if so, 

 had he not learned to use smoothed 

 stone instruments ? Was Noah, himself, 

 a paleolithic or a neolithic man, and 

 did he build the ark with flaked or 

 polished flint implements? 



2. You say: "But towards the close 

 of this period there were 120 years 

 (specially mentioned in the Bible as a 

 time of warning) in which the move- 

 ment was accelerated to such a degree 

 that the rising waters gave point to 

 the preaching of Noah." The period 

 of 120 years here mentioned was de- 

 duced from the statement that Noah 

 was 600 years old at the time of the 

 flood. Do you believe that Noah was 

 GOO years old, and that his grandchil- 

 dren that peopled the earth were sub- 

 sequently born? 



3. You say: "During the last 371 

 days of this period the catastrophe 

 culminated in the facts specifically re- 

 lated in the Book of Genesis." Do you 

 believe that the 'facts specifically re- 

 lated in the Book of Genesis' are true? 

 For example, that "every living sub- 

 stance was destroyed which was upon 

 tlie face of the ground, both man, and 

 cattle, and the creeping things, and the 

 fowl of the heaven; and they were de- 

 stroyed from the earth : and Noah only 

 remained alive, and they that were 

 with him in the ark." 



