S14: GOSSIP THE AFFINITY OF RACES. 



to the ark with an olive leaf plucked off. They there received a 

 promise from the mind of the Lord, that seed time and harvest ^ 

 and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and flight 

 should not cease. A rainbow was given as a token of this cove- 

 nant. Noah became an husbandman and planted a vine. If in 

 addition to this it is credible that the African desert in these 

 latitudes was then a wide ocean — that the Mediterranean sea spread 

 over a much larger surface than at present — that the land of Egypt 

 was submerged — that the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf extended 

 where there is now dry land — we may have the compensating 

 elevations ; and I see no difficulty then in further supposing, that 

 after a drift eastward of more than 150 days, during which the 

 waters prevailed — the ark may have rested on one of the heights of 

 the Hindoo Coosh — the distance involved being equal to about one 

 fourth of the circumference of the Globe in these latitudes. 



We know that in this invigorating climate mankind multiplied 

 exceedingly — that in a few generations they journeyed thence a 

 host — that after some time they arrived and settled at the Plains of 

 Shinar — that with inconceivable stupidity, as appears to us, but 

 wondrous energy, a token of an impious design, they commenced 

 to build a tower whose top should reach tin to heaven. That Nim- 

 rod became a mighty hunter before the Lord, built cities and 

 established a kingdom, &c., &c., &c. 



Thenceforth the history of the Noachian family is the communi- 

 cation of progressive civilization wherever they extended themselves 

 amongst the rude tribes of mankind — improvement, with all the 

 knowledge of art and science conveyed thereby, entirely confined 

 to the Eastern hemisphere. If the true history of the Creation of 

 man and of the Deluge was thus spread abroad — if none escaped the 

 Noachian catastrophe to this side, of those who were involved in it, 

 accidental arrivals of some of the descendants of Noah — Assyrians, 

 Egyptians, Phoenicians, Jews, or Greeks, &c. may have impressed 

 imperfect accounts of those truths, along with elements of civiliza- 

 tion, upon some of the pre-existent tribes of the western continent, 

 and given rise to traditions and beliefs extant at the time of Colum- 

 bus — but which, be it remembered, were considered only with 

 reference to their own ancestry. As the question stands, all the 



