92 PRIMEVAL MAN. 



of the globe which is now Jiabitable is almost 

 certain. But this is quite a different thing 

 from supposing that the Flood affected only 

 a small portion of the world which was then 

 inhabited. The wide, if not the universal 

 prevalence among the heathen nations, of a 

 tradition preserving the memory of some 

 such great catastrophe, has always been con- 

 sidered to indicate recollection carried by 

 descent from the surviving few. And this 

 tradition seems to be curiously strong and 

 definite among tribes which are now separated 

 by half the circumference of the globe 

 from the region affected by the Flood. At 

 all events this is clear, that the difficulty of 

 reconciling the narrative of Genesis with an 

 indefinitely older date is a very small diffi- 



