NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 437 



Another and very fruitful source of explanatory myths is 

 found in ancient centers of volcanic action, and especially in old 

 craters of volcanoes and fissures filled with water. 



In China we have, among other examples, Lake Man, which 

 was once the site of the flourishing city Chiang Shui, over- 

 whelmed and sunk on account of the heedlessness of its inhabi- 

 tants regarding a divine warning. 



In Phrygia the lake and morass near Tyana were ascribed to 

 the wrath of Zeus and Hermes, who, having visited the cities 

 which formerly stood there, and having been refused shelter by 

 all the inhabitants save Philemon and Baucis, sank the wicked 

 cities beneath the lake and morass, but rewarded their bene- 

 factors. 



Stories of similar import grew up to explain the crater near 

 Sipylos in Asia Minor and that of Avernus in Italy ; the latter 

 came to be considered the mouth of the infernal regions, as every 

 school-boy knows when he has read his Virgil. 



In the later Christian mythologies we have such typical le- 

 gends as those which grew up about the old crater in Ceylon ; the 

 salt water in it was accounted for by supposing it the tears of 

 Adam and Eve, who retreated to this point after their expulsion 

 from paradise and bewailed their sin during a hundred years. 



So, too, in Germany we have multitudes of lakes supposed to 

 owe their origin to the sinking of valleys as a punishment for 

 human sin. Of these are the "Devil's Lake," near Gustrow, 

 which rose and covered a church and its priests on account of 

 their corruption; the lake at Probst- Jesar, which rose and cov- 

 ered an oak-grove and a number of peasants resting in it on ac- 

 count of their want of charity to beggars ; and the Lucin Lake, 

 which rose and covered a number of soldiers on account of their 

 cruelty to a poor peasant. 



Such legends are found throughout America and in Japan, 

 and will doubtless be found throughout Asia and Africa, and 

 especially among the volcanic lakes of South America, the pitch 

 lakes of the Caribbean Islands, and even about the Salt Lake of 

 Utah; for explanatory myths and legends under such circum- 

 stances are inevitable.* 



Cornell University. For the legend of Domine quo vadis, see many books of travel and 

 nearly all guide-books for Rome, from the mediaeval " Mirabilia Romas " to the latest edition 

 of Murray. The footprints of Mohammed at Cairo were shown to the present writer in 

 1889. On the general subject, with many striking examples, see Falsan, " La Periode gla- 

 ciaire," Paris, 1889, pp. 17 and 294, 295. 



* As to myths explaining volcanic craters and lakes, and embodying ideas of the wrath 

 of Heaven against former inhabitants of the neighboring country, see Forbiger, " Alte 

 Geographie," Hamburg, 1877, i, 563. For exaggerations concerning the Dead Sea, see 

 ibid., i, 575. For the sinking of Chiang Shui and other examples, see Denny's " Folklore of 

 China," p. 126 et seq. For the sinking of the Phrygian region, the destruction of its inhabi- 



