that usually adopted. I believe it is now very generally 
believed by Biblical scholars that the extent of the Flood was 
much restricted, to what used to be considered its universality. 
“ That the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth, and 
all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered fifteen 
cubits upwards above the highest mountains " ; now ascer- 
tained to be more than 30,000 feet, or between five and six 
miles high. Possibly it principally occurred within the narrow 
region of Atalanta, as described by Plato, and a few of the 
regions immediately adjoining, as in Amiens in France, and 
in the south of England. 
Possibly the cave and other diggings in Denmark and 
Switzerland may relate to a somewhat more recent period. 
The more important consideration, however, I consider to 
be the chronology, which becomes more easily determined 
when the streams from the pre-Sabbatic and Sabbatic unite, 
and we begin to perceive, from an earlier post-Diluvian period, 
when the descendants from Shem, Ham, and Japhet are 
described as the sources of the human population of the earth. 
As I have already suggested, Shem may be viewed as the 
lineal descendant of Noah by generation, but Japhet and Ham 
represent two of the pre-Sabbatic races of mankind, the Black 
and the White, at the time existing in the neighbourhood of 
Noah. 
The description of Noah's conduct after the Flood may be 
supposed to be so well known as not to require a minute detail, 
but I must protest against the grounds stated in the Bible, or 
to credit that the curse of Noah, awakened from his drunken 
fit, should have so changed the colour of Ham that his de- 
scendants shall be servants or slaves, which continues till 
this day. 
Passing to another important chronological term, we come to 
the account of the Tower of Babel, and the miraculous confusion 
of tongues, 2247 B.c.; the genealogy of Shem, who was 100 
years when he begat Arphaxad, two years after the Flood ; 
and then follows the genealogy till we come to the very import- 
ant descendant Terah, who, when seventy years old, begat 
Abram, Nahor, and Haran, 2056 b.c, 
We now arrive at perhaps the most important theological 
period — the call of Abram. This is the ground of our share 
in the blessings of the Gospel, promised to all who accept the 
promise to Abraham. Then follows the history of Abraham, 
who departed — Heaven-directed — when seventy-five years old, 
out of Haran, taking with him his wife Sarai and Lot his 
brother's son, and all their substance they had gathered, and 
the souls they had gotten in Haran, and journeying into the 
