vii HASISADRA'S ADVENTURE 247 



of an inundation, a hurricane from the south-east 

 swept up the Persian Gulf, driving its shallow 

 waters upon the delta and damming back the out- 

 flow, perhaps for hundreds of miles up-stream, a 

 diluvial catastrophe, fairly up to the mark of 

 Hasisadra's, might easily result. 1 



Thus there seems to be no valid reason for re- 

 jecting Hasisadra's story on physical grounds. I 

 do not gather from the narrative that the " moun- 

 tains of Nizir " were supposed to be submerged, but 

 merely that they came into view above the distant 

 horizon of the waters, as the vessel drove in that 

 direction. Certainly the ship is not supposed to 

 ground on any of their higher summits, for Hasisadra 

 has to ascend a peak in order to offer his sacrifice. 

 The country of Nizir lay on the north-eastern side 

 of the Euphrates valley, about the courses of the 

 two rivers Zab, which enter the Tigris where it 

 traverses the plain of Assyria some eight or nine 

 hundred feet above the sea; and, so far as I can judge 

 from maps 2 and other sources of information, it is 

 possible, under the circumstances supposed, that 

 such a ship as Hasisadra's might drive before a 



1 See the instructive chapter on Hasisadra's flood in Suess, 

 Das Antlitz der Erdc, Abth. I. Only fifteen years ago a 

 cyclone in the Bay of Bengal gave rise to a flood which covered 

 3000 square miles of the delta of the Ganges, 3 to 45 feet 

 deep, destroying 100,000 people, innumerable cattle, houses, 

 and trees. It broke inland, on the rising ground of Tipperah, 

 and may have swept a vessel from the sea that far, though I do 

 not know that it did. 



2 See Cernik's maps in Pctcrmanns Mitthettungen, 

 Erganzungshefte 44 and 45, 1875-76. 



