THE CANADIAN SPORTSMAN AND NATURALIST. 



very unusual places, and alarmed the inhabit- 

 ants of isolated dwellings. Several of them 

 have, however, fallen before the rifles of the 

 hunters, who are always ready to turn out in 

 pursuit when large game are reported to show 

 themselves. The regular hunting is scarcely 

 begun as yet, but those who have taken " time 

 by the forelock " have had pretty good success, 

 iii proof cf which I send you the following, 

 clipped from the Belleville intelligencer, of the 

 12th ult. :— 



" A Big Deer Hunt. — A party of seven left 

 for Buck Lake, Sept. 28th, arriving at their 

 destination October 1st. They returned on 

 October 10th. bringing with them 15 deer be- 

 sides a large quantity of smaller game. Of 

 the deer shot Mr. S. Paliser, of Foxboro', shot 

 seven; Mr. S. Golding, of Sidney, six; and Mr. 

 S. D. Ross, of Madoc, two." 



Jas. T. Bell. 



Note — The above was too late for the Octo- 

 ber number. 



A GENERAL DELUGE. 



The following foot note was omitted in the October 

 number. It refers to an asterisk after the word desert, fif- 

 teen lines from the eud of the column : — 



*Note. — The late lamented Geo. Smith, of the British 

 Museum, in his interesting account of the Deluge, which 

 he deciphered after long years of laborious research, wrote 

 the London Telegraph : "The cuneiform inscription 

 which I have recently found and translated, gives a long 

 and full account of the Deluge. It contains the version of 

 tradition of this event, which existed in the early Chaldean 

 period of the city of Erech, one of the cities of Nimrod, 

 now represented by theruins of Warka. In this newly dis- 

 covered inscription the account of the Deluge is put as a nar- 

 rative into the mouth of Xisuthuus or Noah. He relates the 

 wickedness of the world, the command to build the ark, its 

 tuilding, the filling of it, the resting of the ark on a moun- 

 tain, the sending out of the birds, and other matters. The 

 narrative has a closer resemblance to the account trans- 

 mitted by the Grceksfrom Berostis, the Chaldean histori- 

 an, then to Biblical history, but it does not differ materially 

 from either [because all drew from a common fountain — 

 the original Babylonian records, from which each copied. j 

 The principal differences are as to the duration of the 

 Deluge, the name of the mountain on which the ark rested, 

 the sending of the birds, etc. The cuneiform account is 

 much longer and fuller than that of Berosus. and has several 

 details omitted both by the Bible and the Chaldean histori- 

 an. This inscription opens up many questions of which we 

 knew nothing previously, and it is connected with a 

 number of other details of Chaldean history, which will be 

 both interesting and important. This is the first time any 

 inscription has been found with an account of the event 

 mentioned in Genesis." 



Some, bolder than others, have had the inde- 

 pendence to assert that the various races oi 

 men did not originate from a single pair ; but 

 were developed at different periods 3 under widely 



differing circumstances, and that each was 

 peculiarly adapted to the locality in which he 

 is found. They saw that the islands ami 

 widely-separated continents were inhabited by 

 similar animals and races oi human beings, 

 and accounted for this on the hypothesis that 

 their ancestors were carried there by icebergs, 

 or other natural methods, and to man his 

 accidental passage by canoes. Our theory, 

 which seems the more probable, accounts for 

 this condition of things in harmony with the 

 known laws of nature. 



Had the earthquake of a few years ago, 

 which created such terrible havoc to property 

 and life on the coast of Chili, floating large 

 ships many miles inland and leaving them 

 high upon the mountain sides, been universal 

 to the western continent, with a tidal wave as 

 much greater as the convulsion would have 

 been more general, it would have rolled over 

 the mountain barriers, and produced a general 

 deluge. All life save that on mountain tops, 

 must have perished. Arks would have been 

 of no account amid such wild and tumultuous 

 warring of the angry elements. A moment, and 

 down sinks the peaceful earth, and on comes 

 the maddened, rushing waters. Billow follows 

 billow mountain high and rolls on, spreading 

 over the plain and leaping the highest crags. 

 Ships would have been no more than straws 

 floating on a surging ocean. 



If a receding wave should unveil a conti- 

 nent, it would be a barren waste ot crags, and 

 rocks and boulders, pebbles and sand. The 

 few, if any, who clung to mountain tops would 

 probably starve. If any survived, ages of 

 almost limitless duration would have been re- 

 quired to people the earth again. 



A genera] traditionary account of the 

 common disaster would have survived ; but no 

 clear idea of the long period which had elapsed 

 could have been preserved. The knowledge of 

 the event, being passed from father to sot: 

 through successive generations, would be 

 credited to a period much shorter than its 

 reality. 



Though raised at the court of Pharoah, 

 Moses only possessed the knowledge common to 

 the educated Egyptians. All the laws and cus- 

 toms introduced by him to his immediate 

 followers, he carried out of v Egj'pt with him. 

 And Jhe Egyptians no doubt borrowed their 

 ideas from their ancestors, who were probably 

 natives of Persia or Farther India. 



(To be continued.) 



