150 GEOLOGY AND HISTORY 



cannot safely assume that all antediluvian or palaeo- 

 lithic tribes were barbarous or semi-brutal, or that 

 there was a continuous development of humanity with- 

 out any diluvial catastrophe. It is also somewhat 

 rash to carry back the chronology of Egyptians and 

 Babylonians to times when, as we know on physical 

 evidence, the Valley of the Nile was an arm of the 

 sea, and the plain of the Euphrates an extension 

 of the Persian Gulf. It is fortunate for the Bible 

 that such assumptions are not required by its 

 history. 



