Deluges of Deucalion^ Ogyges^ and Noah. 35 



dicated by the statement of Censorinus, who, in his 21st chapter, 

 fixes the period of the Ogygian Deluge 1600 years before the 

 commencement of the calculation by Olympiads, or in the 25th 

 century before Christ ; consequently, at the same time at which, 

 according to Frank and Gatterer, the Noachian Deluge happen- 

 ed. In order to understand the cause of the difference of the 

 other statements of antiquity, in regard to the period of the de- 

 luges of Ogyges and Deucalion, which deviate so much from the 

 one we have now given, it is necessary to refer to the various 

 statements as to the time of the Noachian flood itself. The cal- 

 culation of time in the original passage of the Bible fixes the 

 Deluge in the year 1656, and the Greek translation, in the year 

 #242 after the creation. These two apparently widely different 

 statements agree more nearly than we should at first sight be- 

 lieve. For the Septuagint employed a mode of calculating time 

 according to years of 272 days, consequently to years consisting 

 of ten months ; a natural period which, from its affording an ap- 

 proximation to an adjustment of the periods indicated by the 

 sun and moon, and from its utility in calculating more rapidly 

 eclipses, seems to have been often employed in ancient times in 

 conjunction with the year as calculated by the sun. 2242 years 

 of 10 months would correspond nearly to 1656 solar years. 



If we reckon upwards from the point of commencement of oui 

 present era, the period of the flood was, according to Gatterer 

 and Frank, 2525 years before Christ ; according to Petau, 2328 

 years before Christ. According to an old chronological system 

 of the Indians, mentioned by Baldaus, and which reckons exact- 

 ly 100 years more than the present prevailing system in India, 

 the period of the Yudhistira or of Noah should be fixed at 

 3200 years before Christ, consequently, according to Frank and 

 Gatterer, in the last ten years of the tenth century after the 

 creation. And this system, according to a mode of calculation, 

 which had for its foundation the above-mentioned year of ten 

 months, was that employed in the Samaritan translation of the 

 Pentateuch, when it mentions that the period from the creation 

 to the flood was 1307 years : For 1307 years of ten months are 

 equal to 974 solar, or 1000 lunar, years. 



But the period of the Yudhistira, or the beginning of the 



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