39* PLEASANT WAYS IN SCIENCE. 



ject of which specially connects it, as will presently be seen, 

 with the tablet relating to the creation of the heavenly 

 bodies, Akkad is always referred to as a separate state. 



Now Mr. Smith finds that the story of the Creation and 

 Fall belongs to the upper or Akkad division of the country. 

 The Izdubar legends, containing the story of the Flood, and 

 what Mr. Smith regards as probably the history of Nimrod, 

 seem to belong to Sumir, the southern division of Babylonia. 

 He considers the Izdubar legends to have been written at 

 least as early as B.C. 2000. The story of the Creation "may 

 not have been committed to writing so early ; " but it also is 

 of great antiquity. And these legends " were traditions 

 before they were committed to writing, and were common, 

 in some iorm, to all the country." Remembering Mr. 

 Smith's expressed intention of setting all dates as late as 

 possible, his endeavour to do this rather than to establish 

 any system of chronology, we cannot misunderstand the real 

 drift of his arguments, or the real significance of his con- 

 clusion that the period when the Genesis tablets were 

 originally written extended from B.C. 2000 to B.C. 1550, or 

 roughly synchronized with the period from Abraham to 

 Moses, according to the ordinary chronology of our Bibles. 

 " During this period it appears that traditions of the creation 

 of the universe, and human history down to the time of 

 Nimrod, existed parallel to, and in some points identical 

 with, those given in the book of Genesis." 



Thus viewing the matter, we recognize the interest of 

 that passage in the Babylonian Genesis tablets which corres- 

 ponds with the account in the book of Genesis respecting the 

 creation of the heavenly bodies. We find in it the earliest 

 existent record of the origin of astrological superstitions. It 

 does not express merely the vague belief, which might be 

 variously interpreted, that the sun and moon and stars were 

 specially created (after light had been created, after the fir- 

 mament had been formed separating the waters above from 

 the waters below, and after the land had been separated 

 from the water) to be for signs and for seasons for the in- 



