204 GEOLOGY AND HISTORY 



over these plains in their annual migrations. Possibly 

 on the far margin of the land we might see the smoke 

 of antediluvian towns long ago deeply submerged in 

 the sea. 



The great diluvial catastrophe which closed this 

 period, and finally introduced the present geographical 

 conditions, we have seen good reason to identify with 

 the historical Deluge, and the old peoples of the age 

 of the mammoth and rhinoceros were antediluvians, 

 and must have perished from the earth before the 

 earliest migration of the Beni Noah. 



Putting together the results referred to in the 

 preceding pages, we may restore the prehistoric ages 

 of the Eastern Mediterranean under the following 

 statements : 



1. In the period immediately preceding human 

 occupancy, the land of Palestine, Egypt, and Arabia 

 participated in the great pleistocene depression, 

 accompanied by a rigorous climate. 



2. The next stage was one of continental elevation, 

 in which the borders of the Mediterranean were dry 

 land, and vast plains in this basin, and even in the 

 Western Atlantic, were open to human migration. In 

 this age palseocosmic men took up their abode all over 

 Western Asia, Europe, and Northern Africa, and 

 probably occupied broad lands since submerged. At 

 this period the region was inhabited by the mammoth, 

 rhinoceros, bison, and other large animals now alto- 

 gether or locally extinct. 



3. The earlier part of this post-glacial or antedi- 



