THEORY OF THE EARTH. 149 



luge, which passed for the most ancient of all *, 

 and which was attributed to the bursting of the 

 Bosphorus and the Hellespont. Some idea of a 

 similar event was preserved in Asia Minor f , and 

 in Syria t, and to this the Greeks would after- 

 wards naturally attach the name of Deucalion ||. 

 But none of these traditions assign a very re- 

 remote antiquity to this cataclysm ; and there is 

 none of them that does not admit of explanation, 

 in so far as its date and other circumstances are 

 concerned, from the variations to which narra- 

 tives, that are not fixed by writing, must be con- 

 tinually liable. 



The very remote Antiquity attributed to certain Na- 

 tions is not supported by History. 

 Those who would attribute to the continents 

 and the establishment of nations, a very remote 

 antiquity, are therefore obliged to have recourse 

 to the Indians, Chaldeans, and Egyptians, three 





* Diodorus Siculus, lib. v. cap. xlvii. 



t Stephen of Byzantium, under the word Iconium ; 

 Zenodotus, Prov. cent. vi. No. 10. ; and Suidas, voce Nan- 

 nacus. 



t Lucian, De Dea Syra. 



|j Arnobius, Contra Gent. lib. v. p. m. 158, even speaks 

 of a rock in Phrygia, from which it was pretended that 

 Deucalion and Pyrrha had taken their stones. 



