120 GEOLOGY AND HISTORY 



or of inventive power, are the inspiration of the 

 Almighty. 



We have in the closing part of the Bible story 

 of the antediluvian age even an intimation of the 

 deterioration of climate and means of subsistence 

 towards the end of the period. Lamech, we are told, 

 named his son Noah rest or comfort in the hope 

 that by his means he should be comforted, because of 

 the ground which the Lord had cursed. That curse 

 provoked by the sons of man he may have recognised 

 as fulfilled in the gradual deterioration of the climate 

 toward the close of the palanthropic age. There are 

 here surely some curious coincidences which might be 

 followed farther, did space permit. 



We now come to the close of the whole in the 

 Deluge ; and as this has been made in our own time 

 the subject of much discussion, and as it contains 

 within itself the whole kernel of the subject, it merits 

 a separate treatment 



