135 



515th OEDINARY GENERAL MEETING. 

 MONDAY, MARCH 20th, 1911. 



David Howard, Esq., Yice-Pkesident, occupied the Chair 



UNTIL 5.30, WHEN THE ReV. JoHN TUCKWELL TOOK HIS 



Place. 



The Minutes of the previous Meeting were read and confirmed. 

 The names of two associates, elected by the Council this day, were 

 announced, viz. : — 



Miss Churchill and Miss Dreaper. 



The Chairman, in asking Dr. Pinches to read his paper, said that no 

 introduction was really needed, as Dr. Pinches was personally so well 

 known, and his work still more widely. The Chairman also referred to 

 the wonderful fascination of these cuneiform writings, and commended 

 their study to the Members of the Institute. Dr. Pinches then read his 

 paper. 



THE NEWLY-DISCOVERED VERSION OF THE STORY 

 OF THE FLOOD. By Theophilus G. Pinches, LL.D., 

 M.R.A.S. 



IN all probability there is no phenomenon of nature described 

 in the Old Testament which has attracted so much at- 

 tention as the account of the Deluge, though many may 

 say, that the sun standing still at the command of Joshua 

 would be found to enter into competition with the great 

 cataclysm of earlier date. Since the reading of the first 

 -Babylonian version of the Flood-story by the late George 

 Smith about thirty-six years ago, however, interest has centered 

 rather in that wide-spread catastrophe than in the cause of the 

 great Israelitish leader's victory ; and this interest in the 

 account of the Flood has rather increased of late years in con- 

 sequence of the discovery of other versions — a second one by 

 George Smith when engaged on the Daily Telegraph Expedition ; 

 another still, to all appearance, by Father V. Scheil, a few years 

 ago, and still a fourth, by Professor H. V. Hilprecht last year.* 



* See The Bah/Ionian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania^ 

 Series D ; Researches and Treatises^ edited by H. Y. Hilprecht ; vol. v. 

 Fasciculus /, The Earliest Versio7i of the Babylonian Deluge Story ^ and the 

 Temple Library of Nippur^ by H. V. Hilprecht; " Eckley Brinton Coxe, 

 Junior, Fund," Philadelphia ; published by the University of Pennsyl- 

 vania, 1910. Der neue Fund zur Sintflutgeschichte, und der Tempel- 

 bibliothek von Nippur^ von H. V. Hilprecht ; Leipzic, Hinrichs, 1910. 



K 



