6'90 DEL 
a man and a woman, as low as the bread ; and upon the 
head of the woman is a veil. Over this ark is a trian¬ 
gular kind of pediment, on which there fits a dove ; and 
below it another, which feems to flutter its wings, and 
holds in its mouth a fmall branch of a tree. Before the 
machine is a man following a woman, who, by their at¬ 
titude, feem to have juft quitted it, and to have got upon 
dryland. Upon the ark itfelf, underneath' the perfons 
there inclofed, is to be read, in diftinft characters, NOE. 
I he learned editor of this account fays, that it had fallen 
to his lot to meet with three of thefe coins. They were 
of brafs, and of the medallion fi ze. One of them he men¬ 
tions to have feen in the collection of the duke of Tuf- 
cany ; the fecond in that of the cardinal Ottoboni ; and 
the third was the property of Auguftino Chigi, nephew 
to pope Alexander VII.” 
All the my fteries of the Gentile world feem, more or 
lefs, to have been memorials of the deluge, and of the 
events which immediately fucceeded. They confifted, 
tor the mod part, of a melancholy procefs; and were ce¬ 
lebrated by night, in commemoration of the date of dark- 
nefs in which the patriarch and his family had been in¬ 
volved. The firft tiling at thofe awful meetings was to 
offer an oath of fecre.cy to all who were to be initiated : 
after which they proceeded to the ceremonies. Thefe 
began with a defcription of chaos; by which was figni- 
fied tome memorial of the deluge. Chaos w r as certainly, 
the fame as / 3 vQoc, the great abyfs. “ Who (fays Epipha- 
nius) is fo ignorant as not to know, that Chaos and Cu- 
thos, the abyfs, are of the lame purport ?” 
In the third volume of M. Perron’s Zendavefta, there 
is an account given of the cofmogony of the Parfees ; alfo 
of the fubfequent great events that enfued. The fupreme 
Deity, called by him Onnifda, is laid to have accomplifhed 
the creation at fix different intervals. He firft formed 
the heavens; at the fecond the waters ; at the third the 
earth. Next in order were produced the trees and ve¬ 
getables : in the fifth place were formed birds and 
fifties, and the wild inhabitants of the woods; and, in 
the fixth and laft place, he created man. The man thus 
produced is faid to have been an ox-like perfon, and is 
defcribed as confiding of a purely divine and a mortal 
part. For fome time after his creation he lived in great 
happinefs ; but at laft the world was corrupted by a dae¬ 
mon, named Ahriman. This daemon had the boldnefs to 
vifit heaven ; whence he came down to the earth in the 
form of a ferpent, and introduced a fet of wicked beings, 
called karj'ejlers. By him the firft ox-like perfonage, called 
Abondad , was fo infeffed that he died ; after which Kaio- 
morts, probably the divine part, of which the ox was 
the reprelentative, died alfo. Out of the left arm of the 
deceafed proceeded a being, called GoJ'ckoraun , who is faid 
to have railed a cry louder than the fhout of a thoufand 
men. After fome converlation between the fupreme 
Deity and Gofchoraun, it was determined to put Ahri¬ 
man to flight, and to deftroy all thofe wickedperfons 
he had introduced; for there now feemed to be an uni- 
verfiil oppoiition to the fupreme Deity Onnifda. At this 
ieafon a fecond ox-like perfonage is introduced, by the 
name of Tafchter. He is fpoken of both as a ftar and a 
fun. At the fame time he is mentioned as a perfon upon 
earth under three forms. By Tafchter is certainly figni- 
fied De AJIiter ; the fame perfon whom the Greeks and 
Syrians reprefented as a female, and called AJlarte. She 
was defcribed horned, and fometimes with the head of a 
bull; fuppofed to proceed from an egg; and they e’lleem- 
ed her the fame as Juno and the moon. At laft it was 
thought proper to bring an uniyerfal inundation over 
the face of the earth ; that all impurity might be walked 
away ; which being accomplifhed by Tafchter, every 
living creature perilhed, and the earth was for fome time 
entirely covered. At laft, the waters retreating within 
their proper bounds, the mountain of Albordi, in Ferakh- 
kand, firft appeared; which the author compares to a 
Spree, and fuppofes that all other mountains proceeded 
U G E. 
from it. After this there was a renewal of the world; 
and the earth was reftored to its priftine ftate. The par¬ 
ticular place where Ormifda planted the germina from 
whence all things were to fpring, was Ferakh-kand, 
which fcems to be land of Arach ; the country upon the 
Araxes in Armenia. 
“ That the Greeks and weftern nations (fays Dr. Bry¬ 
ant) had fome knowledge of the flood, has never been 
denied ; and, from what has been already related, it ap¬ 
pears that the fame has pervaded the remoteft regions 
of the eaft. The knowledge which thefe people have 
of the fall of man, and the evil confequences which en¬ 
fued, cannot, according to this author, be the confe¬ 
quences of their intercourfe with Chriftians; for their 
traditions afford neither any traces of Chriftianity, nor its 
founder. Whatever truths may be found in their writ¬ 
ings, therefore, muff be derived from a more ancient 
fource. There are (fays he) in every climate, fome 
(battered fragments of original hiftory ; fome traces of a 
primitive and uniyerfal language : and thefe may be ob- 
ferved in the names of deities, terms of worfhip, and ti¬ 
tles of honour, which prevail among nations widely,fe- 
parated, who forages had no connedtion. The like may 
be found in the names of pagodas and temples ; and of 
fundry other objedts which will prefent themfelves to 
the traveller. Even America would contribute to this 
purpofe. The more rude the monuments, the more an¬ 
cient they may poffibly prove, and afford a greater light 
upon enquiry.” 
The accounts hitherto met with in this continent, in¬ 
deed, are far from being equally fatisfadlory with thofe 
hitherto treated of. In Acafta’s hiftory of the Indies, 
however, we are informed, that the Mexicans make par¬ 
ticular mention of a deluge in their country, by which 
all men were drowned. According to them, one Vira- 
cocha came out of the great lake Titicaca in their coun¬ 
try. This perfon (laid in Tiaguanaco, where at this day 
are to be feen the ruins of fome ancient and very (trange 
buildings. From thence he came to Cufco, where man¬ 
kind began to multiply. They (hew alfo a fmall lake, 
where they fay the fun hid himfelf: for which reafon 
they facrifice largely to him, both men and other ani¬ 
mals. Hennepin informs us, that fome of the favages 
are of opinion, that a certain fpirit, called Olkon by the 
Iroquois, and Atahanta by thofe at the mouth of the river 
St. Laurence, is the Creator of the world; that Mejfou 
repaired it after the deluge. They fay that this Melibu 
or Otkon, being a-hunting one day, his dogs loft them¬ 
felves in a great lake, which thereupon overflowing, co¬ 
vered the whole earth in a (hort time, andfwallflwed up 
the world. According to Herrera, the people of Cuba 
knew that the heavens and the earth had been created ; 
and faid they had much information concerning the 
flood; and that the world had been.deftroyed by water, by 
three perfons, who came three feveral ways. Gabriel de 
Cabrera was told by a man of more than 70 years of age, 
that their anceftor, knowing the deluge was to come, 
built a great Ihip, and went into it with his family and 
abundance of animals; that he lent out a crow, which 
did not at firft return, flaying to feed on the carcafes of 
dead animals, but afterwards came back with a green 
branch. He is faid to have added other particulars, nearly 
confonant to the Mofaic account, as far as Noah’s fons 
covering him when drunk, and the other fcoffing at it. 
The Indians, he faid, defeended from the latter, and 
therefore had no clothes; but the Spaniards, defcending 
from the former, had both clothes and horfes. The fame 
author likewife informs us, that it was reported by 
the inhabitants >ot Caftilla del Oro, in Terra Firma, 
that when the univerfal deluge happened, one man with 
his wife and children efcaped in a canoe, and that from 
them the world was peopled. The Peruvians likewife 
affirmed, that they had received, by tradition from their 
anceftors, that, many years before there were any incas 
or kings, when the country was very populous, there 
happened 
