STONE AGES OF CEYLON. 119 
Seasonal variations probably existed then as now, and during 
the dry months the streams would dwindle, and seeds of grass 
and other plants brought down by the floods would germinate 
and grow, thereby giving rise to a patchy grass land Vescon 
tion and a splendid hunting ground. 
In the quieter days that follow floods, a stream starts to 
scour its bed; but at the beginning of the rains, before the 
load is heavy, this work is mostly finished. Thus, the rivers 
would tend to keep an outlet. 
As time went on, the load would diminish, for the débris 
spread about the hills would have been disposed of. Moreover, 
the velocity of the rivers would diminish with their gradients. 
As the glaciers dwindled, too, in other lands, the rainfall would 
become more evenly distributed, and in the course of time 
normal conditions would supervene. 
Such a state of things may well explain the plateau deposits. 
That the rivers played no small part in the deposition of these 
beds is manifest, for the poorest gravels are furthest from the 
permanent water-courses. 
We have seen that elevation followed the formation of 
plateau beds, but, in spite of the energy thereby gained, the 
phenomena of the preceding period were not repeated. The 
rivers wanted volume ; the flood had passed, and with it the 
conditions of plateau days. 
I will not insist that this was, indeed, the flood recorded in 
the Hebrew scriptures, but I suggest the possibility as a point 
of interest. Even could it be proved that the deluge and the 
abnormal rains of the Pleistocene were indeed one, it would 
not follow that early man had handed the story on to 
succeeding generations. 
In fact, this would be most unlikely, since the conditions 
of the Ice Age were not cataclysmic, but of gradual increase 
and decline. It is quite possible that the story of the flood 
is the result of one of the earliest geological deductions man 
ever made. For consider this. At Minihagalkanda denuda- 
tion in producing a cliff of a hundred feet in height has laid 
bare an outcrop of chert, from which comparatively modern 
stone-age man has shaped his implements. Now, he must 
have been able to recognize a chipped stone at least as well 
