32 On the alleged Greek Traditions of the Deluge. 



time is approaching, when geologists will no longer refer all 

 marks of the superficial action of violent currents of water on 

 the earth, subsequent to the consolidation of its newest strata, 

 to one flood, limited in its time and strictly defined in its cir- 

 cumstances, as the Mosaic deluge is ; but will be compelled 

 to acknowledge that their science points to prolonged, repeated 

 and multiform operations of diluvial currents*. The popular 

 view of this subject derives a strong support from the belief 

 that other nations have a real tradition of the Mosaic deluge, 

 and that something like a chronological coincidence between 

 them can be established. If this opinion has been shown to 

 be unfounded, scientific inquiry into the phenomena of dilu- 

 vial agency on the earths surface will not be embarrassed by 

 the necessity of making its results conform to those of another 

 branch of knowledge. 



I will only observe in conclusion, that the Mosaic account 

 of the Deluge appears to me to bear many of those marks of a 

 tradition of high antiquity, which we have sought in vain in 

 the Greek legends of Deucalion. It is found in the book which 

 the Jews have always regarded as the most ancient of their 

 sacred writings, and it exhibits traces, as critics of the first 

 name assure us, of being itself a document yet older than the 

 book in which it has been incorporated. It does not corre- 

 spond with the traditions or speculations of the Egyptians or 

 the Phoenicians, but in a remarkable manner with those of the 

 people of Mesopotamia and Chaldaea, countries with which 

 the Jews were connected by the origin of their nation. Had 

 they framed it for themselves, it would have been natural for 

 them to refer it to their own country, to have made Noah 

 build his ark in the forests of Lebanon, and the ark rest on 

 the top of Hermon or of Carmel. Instead of this, everything is 

 referred to the valley of the Euphrates and the Tigris. The 

 cypress of which the ark was built was the only wood fit for 

 ship-building which this region afforded f; the bitumen with 

 which it was covered was the product of its asphaltic springs J ; 

 the mountain on which it rested is that from the vicinity of 

 which the Tigris and Euphrates rise, and which looks down 



* [See Prof. Sedgwick's Anniversary Address to the Geological Society in 

 1831, Phil. Mag. and Annals, N.S. vol. ix. p. 313; and also Mr. Greenough's 

 late Address to the same body, in our present Number. — Edit.] 



t The testimony of Arrian, ix. 19., that the cypress was the only wood 

 fit for ship-building of which there was any considerable quantity in Assyria, 

 with the correspondence of the consonants in 1£)J and Kwupaoos, is, 

 I think, decisive in favour of the opinion of Bochart and Celsius that the 



fopher wood is the cypress. [See Mr. Beke's paper on this subject, in 

 ,ond. and Edinb. Phil. Mag. vol. iii. p. 103.— Edit.] 

 t Herod, i. 179. [See Mr. Beke's Remarks on Mr. Carter's paper, in 

 our Number for Apriflast, or vol. iv. p. 280.— Edit.] 



