CHAPTER XV 



Their Prehistoric Environment— Results and Ex- 

 amples of Conjecture, Investigation and 

 Imagination — The Solution 



AMONG the earliest legends of the human race, 

 there survive frequent references to doves and 

 pigeons. Noah sent forth an inquiry concerning the 

 state of the world, before his ark rested upon the peak 

 of Armenia's highest mountain. The descendants of 

 Cush, son of Nimrod, the Hamite, carried into Meso- 

 potamia the memories of the splendid bird of Bactri- 

 ana, in their forms of worshipping the deity they re- 

 vered; and ths Assyrian queen, of the race of Cush- 

 ites, expelled from Babylonia the race of Shemites, 

 ruled by Joktan's dynasty in Arabia; for which glori- 

 ous proceeding the happy people of her prosperous do- 

 main consecrated the pigeon, as her beneficent repre- 

 sentative, and throughout Chaldea and the rich Meso- 

 potamia plain the dove, or pigeon, became sacred to 

 Semiramis, their queen. At an earlier date Menes, a 

 Cushite. or redman, led his migration to Egypt and 

 founded the dynasty on the Nile that remained forty- 

 five centuries, until the "vile race of Cushites" was 

 expelled from the whole land, in 527 B. C, and to them 

 a pigeon represented Athor, daughter of the sun. 



Primitive men, no doubt, developed faculties of con- 

 jecture, imagination and investigation; they conceived 

 of Time as an unbounded duration, without beginning 



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