588 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



to develope and play their part. I do not fear at the present 

 day to shock the sensibilities of others by such a claim, 

 for a champion of the orthodox, Professor Sayce, has stated 

 that he considers that human beings have communicated 

 with each other by means of articulate speech for at least 

 forty thousand years. And this is a very mild estimate 

 compared with what some anthropologists demand. If, 

 then, we allow six thousand years for all recorded his- 

 tory (much even of that being mythical), we have behind, 

 in the darkness of unrecorded ages, thirty - four thousand 

 years of which we know absolutely nothing except geo- 

 logically. Time is here for the growth and decadence of 

 great peoples, for endless wanderings, tradings, wars, captivi- 

 ties, and, in fact, an infinite variety of circumstances before 

 which the mind falters. It is quite possible, nay, even pro- 

 bable, that in that far-off unknown time there were means of 

 communication as to language and tradition of which we now 

 have no conception, and that legend and story may have 

 passed from race to race during epochs since which the very 

 configuration of the earth's surface has had time to change. 



Thus, then, we have considered three theories for the 

 origin of the "destruction" legend: that it was pure lying, 

 evolved similarly in many places at once ; that it was a 

 religious story (record or parable) handed down from a people 

 which differentiated into many alien races ; or that it was a 

 tale which, issuing from one source, flowed by intercommunica- 

 tion among people widely separated in regard to locality and 

 ethnic character. There yet remains another explanation, 

 which seems to me to be the most probable of all — viz., that 

 it belongs to the class of legends named by Tylor " myths 

 of observation." These are mainly scientific discernments, 

 distorted by imperfect observation, and affected by the primi- 

 tive superstitions and dim perceptions of cause and effect 

 which mark the simple mind of the barbarian. He sees, as 

 the trained scientist sees, the facts of nature, and, unable to 

 reason inductively, he deduces some false conclusion. He 

 notices huge bones left uncovered by a landslip, or lying in a 

 cave. Thence arises the idea that these are the bones of 

 giants, and it is not loiig before around the incident are 

 grouped all the accompaniments of myth — the war between 

 the gods and giants, &c. The Siberians have often found 

 bones, teeth, and other remains of mammoths partly exposed 

 in river-banks or cliffs. They supposed, from seeing the 

 remains thus half-buried in the ground, that these were the 

 disjecta membra of some burrowing animal. The Chinese of 

 the North call it fen-shu, the "digging-rat." Soon arose 

 legends of the creature's habits : the Yakuts and Tunguz 

 have seen the earth heave and sink as a mammoth bored 



