The Meeting-Place of Geology and History

gh a variety of phases like the changes of a kaleidoscope, and which may afford an instructive illustration of the modifications of belief in other, and some of the

nd gravels must be of greater age than the historical Deluge, and that the remains of men and animals contained in them must have belonged to far-off ?ons, antedating perhaps even the Biblical creation of man, while the historical Deluge, if it ever occurred, must have been an affair so small and local that it had left no traces on the rocks of the earth. At the same time Biblical critics were busy with the narrative itself, showing that it could be decomposed into different documents, that it bore traces of a very recent origin, that it was unhistorical, and to be relegated to the same category with the fairy-tales of our infancy. Again, however, the kaleidoscope turns, and the later researches of geology into the phy

on I make two extracts, one from Lenormant's Beginni

ence of an actual and terrible event, which made so powerful an impression upon the imaginations of the first parents of our species that their descendants could never forget it. This cataclysm took place near the primitive cradle of mankind, and previous to the separation of the families from whom the principal races were to descend, for it would be altogether contrary to probability and to the l

de l'Histoire. B

following may be accepted

n Bible Lands, 1888,

e measures of the date of this great continental elevation. Many years ago, Sir Charles Lyell used the recession of the Falls of Niagara as a chronometer, estimating their cutting power as equal to one foot per annum. He calculated the beginning of the process, which dates from the post-glacial elevation, to be about thirty thousand years ago. More recent surveys have shown that the rate is three times as great as that estimated by Lyell, and also that a considerable part of the gorge was merely cleaned out by the river

which still survive, why may we not correlate the two? If the Deluge was misused in the early history of geology, by employing it to account for changes which took place long before the advent of man, this should not cause us to neglect its legitimate uses, with reference to the early human period. It is evident that if this correlation be accepted as probable, it must modify many views now held as to the antiquity of man. In that case the modern gravels and silts, spread over the plateaus between the river v

by Professor Prestwich in Journal Geol. Society and Trans.

formulate these conclusions in a few general statements, merely referring to the evidence on which they are based, as any complete discussion of this would necessarily be impossible w

mporary Review, December 1889, and in The Ma

an. As Lenormant has well shown, the tradition exists in the ancient literature of India, Persia, Ph?nicia, Phrygia, and Greece, and can be recognised in the traditions of Northern and Western Europe and of America, while the Egyptians had a similar account of the destruction of men, but apparently not by water, though their idea of a submerged continent of Atlantis probably had reference to the antediluvian world. Thus we find

respects different. Thus in Europe and Asia, and to some extent also in America, we have evidence that the present races of men were preceded by others which have passed away, and this at the same time with many important species of land animals, once the contemporaries of man, but now known only as fossils. These ancient men are those called by geologists later pleistocene, or post-glaci

is I have referred to in previous pages, and need not reiterate them, here. A few leading points may, however, be noted. One of these is the small amount of physical or organic change which has occurred since the close of the palanthropic period. Another is the more rapid rate of erosion and deposition by rivers in the modern period than had previously been supposed. Another is the striking fact that a large number of mammals, like the mammoth and woolly rhinoceros, seem to have perished simultaneously with the pal?ocosmic men, and this by some sudden catastrophe. [41] It has also been shown by Pictet and Dawkins that all the extant mammals of Europe already existed in the post-glacial age, but along with many others now altogether or locally extinct. Thus there seems to have been the removal over the whole northern hemisphere of a numb

The Mammoth

at Ightham, Kent, Journal G

an periods, an earlier and a later, characterised by differences of faun? and of physical conditions, as well as by distinct races of men. (2) That these two periods are separated by a somewhat rapid physical change of the nature of submergence, or by a series of changes locally s

d to ascertain how much of our notions of the Deluge of Genesis may be fairly deduced from the record itself, and how much may be due to more or less correct interpretations, or to our own

of the human race into hostile clans or tribes, the races of Cain and Seth, on which hinges the history, characteristics and fate of antediluvian man; and, as we shall see in the sequel, from this arose profound differences in religious beliefs, which have tinged the th

re widely, probably attained to a higher civilisation, in so far as art is concerned, in some of its divisions, and sank to a deeper barbarism in others, while it retained the original worship of God the Creator (Elohim). Hence the Sethite race is designated as the sons of Adam (Beni ha Adam), the true and legitimate children of the first man, and the Cainites as Beni Elohim, or sons

ence in Bible L

ons in Genesis vi. I cannot doubt. See discussion

g with, Jahveh alone the birth of her eldest son-'I have produced a man, the Jahveh,' and which may mean that she supposed Cain to be the promised manifestation of God as the Redeemer. Accordingly Cain and Abel are represented as offering sacrifice to Jahveh, and yet it is said in a verse which must be a part of the same document, that it was not till the time of Enos, a grandson of Adam, that men began to invoke the name of Jahveh. It would seem also that this invocation of Jahveh was peculiar to the Sethites, and that the Cainites were still worshippers of Elohim, the God of nature and creation, a fact which perhaps has relation to the so-called physical religion of some ancient peoples. Hence their title of B

ure to do this involves them in the wrath of Jahveh and renders the destruction of mankind necessary, and in this the whole Godhead under its combined aspects of

ade up of two documents it gains in value, since this would imply that the editor had at his disposal two chronicles embodying the observations of two narrators, possibly of different sects, if these differences were perpetuated in the postdiluvian world; and farther, that he is enabled to affirm that the catastrophe affected both the great races of men. It farth

or Green in Hebraica, January 1889, along with Dr. Harper's

we should bear in mind that writing was an art well known in Chaldea and Egypt immediately after the Deluge, or at least

if they have any agreement with the conditions of the great post-glacial Deluge of geology. Let it be observed here that we are dealing not with prehistoric events but with a written history, supposed by some to have been c

s implies a considerable advance in the arts of construction and navigation, but not more than we have a right to infer from the perfection of these arts in early postdiluvian times, when it

mention either of the sea, or of navigation, or any pilot. In the Epopee of Uruk, on the other hand, everything indicates that it was composed among a maritime people; each circumstance reflects the manners and customs of the dwellers on the shores of

have been from unwillingness to change an old history derived from their Chaldean or Mesopotamian ancestors, or because they continued to regard the ark as rather a great box than a ship properly so called. On the other hand, it is likely that the particulars in the Chaldean account came from later manipulation of the narrative, after

of the writers in the record of creation in Genes

and by a number of bulkheads, or partitions, separating the rooms or berths into which it was divided. Without, it was protected and rendered tight by coats of resinous or asphaltic varnish (copher), and it was built of the lightest and most durable kind of wood (gopher or cypress). Onl

e steamers which now transfer to England the animal produce of Western fields and prairies. The animals portrayed on the ancient monuments of Egypt and Assyria, however, inform us that, in early post-diluvial times, and therefore probably also in the time of Noah, a greater variety of animals were under the control of man than is the case in any one country at present. [48] In the pas

actions of the Society of Biblical Arch?ology; also repre

mitive peoples has sanctioned the distinction of clean and unclean beasts,

ed by the composite theory as Elohistic. On this principle of interpretation, the great deep is that universal ocean which prevailed before the elevation of the dry land, and the breaking up of its fountains is the removal of that restriction placed upon it when its waters were gathered together into one place. In other words, the meaning is the invasion of the land by the ocean. In like manner, the windows of heaven, the cloudy reservoirs of the atmosp

ed to the destruction of an ungodly race, and as it was announced beforehand by a prophet. Had the approaching eruption of Krakatoa been intended as a judgment on the wicked, and had it been revealed to anyone who had taken pains to warn his countrymen and then to provide for his own safety, this would have given to that eruption as much of a miraculous character as the Bible attaches to the Deluge. In the New Testament, where we have more definite information as to miracles, they are usually called 'powers' and 'signs,' less prominence being given to the mere wonder which is implied in the term 'miracle.' Under the aspect of powers, they imply that the Creator can do many things beyond our power and comprehension, just as in a lesser way a civilised man, from his greater knowledge of natural laws and command over natur

infinity of particles, the final extinction of the solar heat, or the accession to this heat of such additional fierceness as to burn up the attendant planets. All this might take place without any interference with God's laws, but merely by correlations and adjustments of them, as much within His power as the turning on or stopping of a machi

ed some simple antiquarians to find dug-out canoes of prehistoric date on the tops of hills; but they did not reflect that the maker of a canoe would construct his vessel where the suitable wood could be found, since it would be much easier to carry the finished canoe to the shore than to drag thither the solid log out of

ard toward the great sunken plain of interior Asia, which, however, the ark did not reach, but grounded in the hilly region known to the Hebrews as Ararat, to the Chaldeans as Nisr. A curious statement is made here (Elohist) as to the depth of the water being fifteen cubits. Even in a flat country so small a depth would not cover the rising grounds; but this is obviously not the meaning of the narrator, but something much more sensible and practical. It is not unlikely that the measure stated was the water-draught of the loaded ark, and that as the voyagers felt it rise and fall on the waves, they may have experienced some anxiety lest it should strike and go to pieces

regularly, but by an intermittent process, 'going and returning'; but whether this was a tidal phenomenon or of the nature of earthquake waves we have no information.

him made a wind to pass over the

ut immediately after the raven, [52] is of a different habit. It could not act as a scavenger of the waters and go and return, but could leave only if it found land covered with vegetation. As a domesticated bird also, it would naturally come back to be taken into the ark. Hence it was sent forth at intervals of seven days, returning with an olive leaf when it found tree tops above the water, and remaining away when it found food and shelter. The Chaldean account adds a third bird, the swallow-a perfectly useless addition, since this bird, if taken into the ark at all, would from its habits of life be incapable of affording any information. This addition is a mark of interpolation in the Chaldean version, and proceeded perhaps from the sacred character attached by popular superstition to the swallow, or from the familiar habits of the

d Version; less fully, '

uppose, as some have done, a

t the condition of the surrounding country, now abandoned by the waters, but not thoroughly dried for some time longer. Still, so timid was the patriarch that he did not dare without a special command to leave his place

reen, Hebr

universality of the Deluge. It was universal so far as his experience extended, but that is all. He is not responsible for what occurred beyond the limits of his observation and beyond the fact that man, so far as known to him, perished. If, therefore, as some have held, [54] Balaam in his prophecy refers to Cainite populations as extant in his time, or if Moses declines to trace to any of the postdil

is, Délug

hical elements, such as those introduced into the Babylonian narrative, are altogether absent. The story relates to plain matters of fact, which, if they happened at all, any one might observe, and for the proof of which any ordinary testimony would be suffi

ual character than that recorded in Genesis, but in the case of many of them this is a very uncertain inference from the analogy of modern changes; and it is certain that the post-glacial submergence, which closed the era of pal?ocosmic man and his companion animals, must have been one of the most transient on record. On the other hand, we need not limit the entire duration of the Noachic submergence to the single year whose record has

ruder tribes of Cainites, and that if we regard the Truchère skull as representing the Sethite people, we may suppose the Cro-magnon race to represent the giants, or Nephelim, who sprung from the union of the two pure types. I have also referred to the possibility that the Truchère race, so little known to us as yet, may have been a prot-Iberian people, possessing even before the Flood domestic animals, agriculture, and some of the arts of life, corresponding to what we find in the earliest postdiluvian nations. This is, indeed, implied in the fact that the postdiluvian nations present themselves to us at once with a somewhat advanced con