September 11, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



335 



umn,' so, in early times, when the tradition 

 of the burning cities was gradually growing 

 into the myth of Sodom and of Lot, some 

 old name of the salt column, grown mean- 

 ingless, may have had such sound as to 

 suggest the term, ' Lot's wife' — Bint Sheck 

 Lut, or the woman's own name in the cur- 

 rent language, as Chamirah, the burning 

 mountain, suggested Chamsera, the goat, 

 and the answer to the question why was 

 the salt column called Lot's wife was 

 quickly given and woven into the legend. 

 In that dry climate successive erosions have 

 reproduced it along the seven-mile ridge of 

 salt, still called Kashum Usdum, or Sodom. 



THE FLOOD. 



Only through an exegesis of the German 

 words Alluvium and Diluvium would the 

 young geologist be reminded of the time 

 when the Flood was a burning question in 

 geology, an igneo-aqueous question, so to 

 speak ; when commentaries explained the 

 fossil shells in the Apennines as due to 

 l^oah's Flood, and Voltaire tried to break 

 the force of this important proof of the 

 truth of the Bible by declaring these shells 

 to be the scallop-shells thrown away by ex- 

 piring pilgrims of the Crusades ; when 

 Andreas Scheuzer apostrophized his fossil 

 salamander (/ Homo diluvii testis et theo- 

 scopos ') : 



" Betriihtes Beingeriist von einem alten Sunder 

 Erweiche Stein und Herz der neuen Bosheits-kin- 

 der." 



This ancient sinner's scattered and dishonored bones 

 Should touch the stony hearts of modern wicked ones. 



It was thus a great surprise when one of 

 the most powerful and philosophical works 

 of the century on geology, 'Die Ansicht 

 der Erde,' of Suess, had as its opening 

 chapter an explanation of the Flood as due 

 to a coincidence of a cyclone and an earth- 

 quake at the mouth of the Euphrates. The 

 Biblical account is plainly exotic, told by a 

 people ignorant of sea-faring — a fresh- water 



account of a salt-water episode. The de- 

 scription of the vessel as a box or ark, the 

 going in and shutting the doors, and the 

 opening of the windows, remind one of a 

 house-boat and indicate the adaptation of 

 the story to the comprehension of an inland 

 people. Its minor discrepancies and blend- 

 ing of the Jahvistic and Elohistic elements 

 show the story has come by devious courses 

 from a distant source. 



The account of the Chaldean priest, Bero- 

 sus, 250 B. C, located the occurrence at the 

 mouth of the Euphrates, where the native 

 boatman still pitches his boat within and 

 without with pitch, as the ark was pitched. 



Berosus, priest of Bel, quoted by Alex- 

 ander Polyhistor, says that the Flood oc- 

 curred under the reign of Xisuthros, son of 

 Otiartes. Kronos announces to Xisuthros, 

 in a dream, that on the fifteenth of the 

 month Daisios all mankind shall be de- 

 stroyed by a flood. He commands him to 

 bury the writings containing the records of 

 the history of his country at Sippara, city 

 of the dead, then to build a vessel, to stock 

 it with provisions, then to embark with his 

 family and his friends, also to take quadru- 

 peds and birds with him. 



Xisuthros obeys the command. The 

 Flood occurs and covers the land; it de- 

 creases; he lets out birds to gain knowledge 

 of the state of things, and finally leaves the 

 ship and prepares with his family, an offer- 

 ing to the gods. Xisurthros is then, for his 

 piety, translated to live among the gods, 

 with his wife, his daughter and the steers- 

 man. Of the ship of Xisuthros, which 

 finally stranded in Armenia, there still re- 

 mains a portion in the Cordyaian Moun- 

 tains in Armenia, and the people scrape off 

 the bitumen with which it is covered, and 

 use it as an amulet against sickness. And 

 as the others had returned to Babylon and 

 had found the writings at Sippara they 

 built towns and erected temples, and so 

 Babylon was again peopled. 



