148 THEORY OF THE EARTH. 



been believed in Syria, as they showed in the tem- 

 ple of Hieropolis, at a period indeed long after, 

 the abyss through which they pretended that its 

 waters had run off.* 



Even in Egypt this tradition appears to have 

 been forgotten, as we do not find any traces of 

 it in the most ancient remaining fragments from 

 that country. All of these indeed are posterior 

 to the devastations committed by Cambyses ; and 

 the little agreement there is among them suffi- 

 ciently proves that they had been derived from 

 mutilated fragments : For we cannot establish the 

 smallest probable conformity between the lists of 

 the kings of Egypt, as given by Herodotus in the 

 era of Artaxerxes, by Erastosthenes and Manetho 

 under the Ptolemies, and by Diodorus in the reign 

 of Augustus : neither do they agree among them- 

 selves in the extracts which they pretend to have 

 taken from the writings of Manetho.t Yet the 

 Egyptian mythology seems to allude to these great 

 events in the fabulous adventures of Typhon and 

 Osiris. Besides, if the priests of Sais really gave 

 the accounts to Solon, which are repeated by Cri- 

 tias in the writings of Plato, we must conclude 

 that they had preserved some very exact traditions 

 of a great revolution, though they had removed 

 its epoch much farther back than was done by 



* Lucian, de Dea Syria. 

 t See the English Ancient Universal History, vol. I. 



