THEORY OF THE EARTH. 141 



of thirty-three centuries ; and it is only necessary 

 to read it, to perceive that it has in part been 

 composed of fragments of previously existing works. 

 We cannot, therefore, hesitate to admit, that this 

 is the most ancient writing which has been trans- 

 mitted to modern times in the West *. 



Now, this work, and all those which have been 

 composed since, whatever strangers their authors 

 might be to Moses and his people, speak of the 

 nations on the shores of the Mediterranean as of 

 recent origin ; they represent them as still in a 

 half savage state some ages before. And, further, 

 they all speak of a general catastrophe, an irrup- 

 tion of the waters, which occasioned an almost 

 total regeneration of the human race ; and to this 

 epoch they do not assign a very remote antiquity. 

 Those texts of the Pentateuch, which extend 

 this epoch the longest, do not place it farther 

 back than twenty centuries before Moses, and 

 hence not more than 5400 years before the pre- 

 sent day f. 



In the poetical traditions of the Greeks, from 

 which is derived the whole of our profane history 

 with reference to those remote ages, there is no- 

 thing which contradicts the Jewish annals. On the 



* Note N. 



t The Septaagint, 5345 years; the Samaritan text, 4869; 

 the Hebrew text, 4174, 



