Corres2)0)ide)ice — J. Adam Watson. 425 



However catastrophic in its occurrence the distribution of the 

 Drift may have been, it is obvious that the progress made by man 

 in his passage from the Palgeothic to the Neolithic stage was not 

 characterized by that suddenness which is ordinarily associated with 

 the terra. Of the history of that progress, of the place of man's 

 abode during it, we know nothing. There is a true 'gap' or 'break.' 



In geology and archaeology these two words simply imply that 

 our knowledge as to the periods of time concerned is imperfect, and 

 we always expect to find certain of the missing links of the chain 

 of evidence come to light, which they sometimes do in unexpected 

 places. 



Is there any link to be found, however remote, to help to bridge 

 over that extraordinary gap between Palaeolithic man and his 

 Neolithic successors ? I believe there is one, and that it is to be 

 found in the almost universal tradition of a 'deluge' — a tradition 

 which appears to me to have been handed down from our Palaeolithic 

 ancestors through the Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron ages of their 

 successors, and to have reached us as a dim and misty conception of 

 their ideas of the — let us call it very bad weather — of the Pleistocene 

 Period. That the story as conveyed to us from Asiatic sources is 

 very different from that written on the page of the rocks in Northern 

 Europe, is not surprising. All tradition undergoes a process of 

 corruption as it is handed down from age to age, and the particular 

 form in which the deluge tradition has reached us is obviously no 

 exception to the rule. Unfortunately, when such a theory is 

 advanced, it is usually seized upon as a confirmation of the 

 miraculous inspiration of Scripture. It is no such thing. 



I cannot claim originality for the theory, because I find in 

 Mr. Tiddeman's " Work and Problems of the Victoria Cave Ex- 

 ploration," 1875, the following passage : — " As similar evidences of 

 a submergence late in the glacial period have been observed over 

 large areas in the Old and the New World, and in both hemispheres, 

 in mean latitudes, it may be that the traditions so common to many 

 races and religions of a great deluge are but lingering memories of 

 this great event. It matters not that these myths all differ in their 

 surroundings. The central core still has the solid ring of truth, 

 albeit masked and disfigured by the rust of time." 



I venture to suggest that the theory that the deluge tradition 

 is the one and only link which bridges over the gap between 

 Palaeolithic man and ourselves, his descendants, is one which is 

 worthy of more attention than it has hitherto received. 



J. Adam Watson. 

 " Hay Tor," Dennixgton Pauk Road, Hampstead. 

 August 18, 1901. 



EOLITHIC MAN. 

 SiE, — It is remarkable that in a quasi-geological paper by a well- 

 known writer should have been allowed to pass current such 

 a statement as that at p. 340 (Gkol. Mag., August issue), to the 

 effect that " Huxley caused McEnery's now famous memoir to be 



