thirty-three and thirty-four years. I have assumed thirty-eight years as the 
duration of each generation, and we have ample evidence that occasionally 
this duration is exceeded. Three generations of thirty-eight years each 
would include an interval of 114 years — a duration not uncommon in our 
own days. I may be entirely wrong in my assumption, and only venture to give 
it for what it is worth ; but, after all, there is not such a very great difference 
between the thirty-four years of Herodotus and the assumption of thirty-eight 
years, from the Cuneiform monument, as the possible duration of an age or 
generation, according to the estimate of the ancient Chaldeans. As to the 
Chinese date of the Deluge, I remember that in Chambers’s Astronomy, a 
writer brings the argument or inference forward in the same way. All we 
can say is that the Chinese had a tradition, that in a year which answers to 
our B.C. 2440, there was a conjunction which may have accorded with the 
date of the Deluge. If you look into Chinese annals you will not find any 
authentic Chinese history previous to the year 2300. Confucius, who lived 
B.C. 500, and who was to the Chinese what Moses was to the Jews, seems to 
admit that there is no earlier evidence of real history than that. Now 
2300 B.C. would answer to the time when we believe the scattering of the 
nations occurred, and they quickly spread over Asia, about a century after 
the Noachian Flood. All authentic history, whether Egyptian, Assyrian, 
Babylonian, or Chinese, does not extend to an earlier date than 2300 B.C. 
All beyond that date is fabulous, legendary, and untrue. This fact is a 
remarkable confirmation of Biblical chronology. Further, there is a very 
singular confirmation of Biblical chronology, which I have already adduced 
in a paper that I had the honour of reading at this Institute three years ago, 
which relates to the seven years’ famine in Egypt in the time of J oseph. It 
is expressly stated to have extended to “ all lands,” and to have lasted “ seven 
years.” Now it is a proved fact that the Chinese annals do record 
a dearth lasting “ seven years” during which it is said that no rain 
fell, and these seven years do agree with the seven years of Biblical 
chronology as set forth in the Hebrew Scriptures. Then, as to the 
date of the Exode and Cecrops. I have adduced the testimony of a Greek 
inscription on a monument, now at Oxford, and known as the Parian 
Chronicle or Arundellian Marble, to show that at the period when the 
exodus of the Israelites took place, the Greeks had a tradition that 
their country was first colonized by emigrants from Egypt, and that Cecrops 
is mentioned as having fled from that country at that very period. It is not im- 
possible, therefore, that this tradition, which was current in Egypt about 
twelve centuries (the date of the Parian marble) after its occurrence, may 
refer to the same thing. It is necessary to point out that the photograph 
of an Egyptian monument now in the Ashmolean Museum, which I pro- 
duced at the meeting, affords very different evidence from that other monu- 
ment at Oxford referred to as the Parian marble. In point of time, there 
were more than 2,000 years between the two ; and the former inscription was 
adduced only on account of its very high antiquity. It belongs to a period 
