VII HASISADRA'S ADVENTURE 249 



ago, may have differed to such an extent from 

 those which now exist that we should be able to 

 convict him of having made up his tale. But 

 here again everything is in favour of his credibility. 

 Indeed, he may claim very powerful support, for 

 it does not lie in the mouths of those who accept 

 the authority of the Pentateuch to deny that the 

 Euphrates valley was what it is, even six thousand 

 years back. According to the book of Genesis, 

 Phrat and Hiddekel the Euphrates and the 

 Tigris are coeval with Paradise. An edition of 

 the Scriptures, recently published under high 

 authority, with an elaborate apparatus of "Helps" 

 for the use of students and therefore, as I am 

 bound to suppose, purged of all statements that 

 could by any possibility mislead the young 

 assigns the year B.C. 4004 as the date of Adam's 

 too brief residence in that locality. 



But I am far from depending on this authority 

 for the age of the Mesopotamian plain. On the 

 contrary, I venture to rely, with much more con- 

 fidence, on another kind of evidence, which tends 

 to show that the age of the great rivers must be 

 carried back to a date earlier than that at which 

 our ingenuous youth is instructed that the earth 

 came into existence. For, the alluvial deposit 

 having been brought down by the rivers, they 

 must needs be older than the plain it forms, as 

 navvies must needs antecede the embankment 

 painfully built up by the contents of their wheel- 



