NBWLY-DISCOVEKED VERSION OF THE STORY OF THE FLOOD. 155 



polar ice and snow, and also caused much greater evaporation from 

 the seas, resulting in the tremendous rain mentioned in Genesis, and 

 the greatly increased weight of water on the wide expanses of land 

 resulting in depression of the land, the sea rushed in and magnified 

 the subsidences. 



He then referred to a quarry near Weston-super-Mare, mentioned 

 by Professor Prestwich, at which the workmen told him (Mr. Seeley) 

 that they were present when the fissure containing the mingled 

 bones was opened and they said emphatically, " It stunk us out." 

 The remaining presence of such decomposing matter with such bones 

 seemed to indicate that the date of the collection and of its sealing 

 up with clay could not be more remote than the date of the Deluge 

 on a reasonable estimate. And if, as Professor Prestwich affirmed, 

 such collections of bones in rock fissures (not caves) have already 

 been discovered from Britain to Asia Minor, the cause, if one and 

 the same, must have been very widespread. 



Dr. Heywood Smith asked whether the lecturer thought that 

 the title " makurru " referred to could have any relation to the 

 word " Maru," used by the Japanese to indicate a merchant ship 



Mr. TuCKWELL, who had now taken the chair as Mr. Howard 

 had to leave, called attention to the fact that Professor Tindall in 

 his volume, Heat, a Mode of Motion, had remarked that enormous 

 accumulation of frozen vapour at the two poles producing enormous 

 pressure and maintaining glacial movements, necessitated a propor- 

 tional evaporation in the equatorial regions. 



Mr. Maunder desired to thank Dr. Pinches for his most admirable 

 and instructive paper, and especially for the clearness with which he 

 had pointed out how far the translation of this interesting tablet 

 was established, and how far it was conjectural. A former speaker 

 had asked whether the Gilgames Epic might be a zodiacal myth ; the 

 hero representing the sun in his progress through the 12 signs. 

 The eleventh tablet on this theory described the Flood because 

 Aquarius was the eleventh sign. But as he had already explained 

 in his book. The Astronomy of the Bible, certain of the southern 

 constellations bore evident reference to the Genesis narrative of 

 the Deluge, and equally to the supposed " Priestly " and 

 "Jehovistic" components; yet the constellations were designed 

 about 2700 B.C. At that period Aquarius was the tenth sign, not 

 the eleventh ; it did not become the eleventh sign until after 



