THE DELUGE OF NOAff 125 



are found both in Europe and America, and lead to 

 the belief that it is physically impossible that man 

 could have colonised the northern hemisphere at an 

 earlier date. These facts render necessary an entire 

 revision of the calculations based on the growth of 

 stalagmite in caves, and other uncertain data which 

 have been held to indicate a greater lapse of time. 



' If we identify the antediluvians of Genesis with 

 the oldest men known to geological and archaeo- 

 logical science, the parallelism is somewhat marked 

 in physical characteristics and habits of life, and also 

 in their apparently sudden and tragical disappearance 

 from Europe and Western Asia, along with several 

 of the large mammalia which were their contem- 

 poraries. If the Deluge is to be accepted as his- 

 torical, and if a similar great break interrupts the 

 geological history of man, separating extinct races 

 from those which still survive, why may we not 

 correlate the two? If the Deluge was misused in 

 the early history of geology, by employing it to 

 account for changes which took place long before the 

 advent of man, this should not cause us to neglect 

 its legitimate uses, with reference to the early human 

 period. It is evident that if this correlation be ac- 

 cepted as probable, it must modify many views now 

 held as to the antiquity of man. In that case the 

 modern gravels and silts, spread over the plateaus 

 between the river valleys, will be accounted for, not 

 by any greater overflow of the existing streams, but by 

 the abnormal action of currents of water diluvial in 



