110 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



accompanied by a series of tidal waves from the ocean, might well be 

 tantamount to a deluge. One has only to read of the recorded appear- 

 ance and destructive e:ffects of such waves in modern times to recognise 

 how truthfully they are described as "Deluges," particularly by the 

 survivors who have witnessed the catastrophe and suffered from it. The 

 details given in the Annals as to the places of their deaths and inter- 

 ments rather tends to prove that the " Deluge " was not such as to 

 have prevented people from sui'viving and living on the island, which 

 so far favours the supposition of a sea- wave or subsidence with sea- 

 wave. Too much stress cannot be laid on this view of the question, 

 since it bears a certain relation to the submersion of the Island of 

 " Atlantis," as mentioned by Plato, and the two together might be 

 taken as connecting links in that chain of events implied by the break- 

 ing-up and submersion of different parts of that Great Lava Plateau 

 spoken of in Messrs. IS'ewton and Teall's report. It is further interest- 

 ing to note that a series of modern archaeological discoveries, resulting 

 from the excavations so successfully and scientifically carried out in 

 Egypt and in Asia Minor, as also in Mesopotamia, and now being 

 actively pursued in many other quarters of the East, have resulted in 

 pushing back the record of time so, that already dates of 7000 b.c. 

 are spoken of, and we may well foresee that further researches will 

 in not many years hence push the antiquity of human records back to 

 10,000 B.C. There even appears in the Scientific American Supple- 

 ment of January 26th, 1901, p. 20960, an article entitled '' Archaeology 

 in the Past Century," by Prof. W. M. Flinders Petrie, d.c.l., ll.d., of 

 University College, London, in which he says : — 



" We, therefore, have passed now at the end of this century to a 

 far wider view of man's histoiy, and classify his earlier ages in Europe 

 thus : — 



(1st). Eolithic — Eudest massive flints from deposits 600 feet up. 



(2nd). Palceolithic — Massive fliats from gravels 200 feet up and 

 less ; [AchuUen). 



(3rd), ,, Cave-dwellers, flints like the preceding and 



flakes ; {MousUrien). 



(4th). ,, Cave-dwellers, flints well worked and 



finely shaped; [Solutrien). 



(5th). ,, Cave-dwellers, abundant bone-working and 



drawing; {MagdaUnien). 



(6th). Neolithic — Polished flint working ; pastoral and agri- 

 cultural man. 



