people of Noah, it could not have been universal. The religious world
does not pretend to fix the location of the Garden of Eden. The Rev.
George Leo Haydock says, "The precise situation cannot be ascertained;
bow great might be its extent we do not know;" and we will see hereafter
that the unwritten traditions of the Church pointed to a region in the
west, beyond the ocean which bounds Europe in that direction, as the
locality in which "mankind dwelt before the Deluge."

It will be more and more evident, as we proceed in the consideration of
the Flood legends of other nations, that the Antediluvian World was none
other than Atlantis.

CHAPTER III.

THE DELUGE OF THE CHALDEANS.

We have two versions of the Chaldean story--unequally developed, indeed,
but exhibiting a remarkable agreement. The one most anciently known, and
also the shorter, is that which Berosus took from the sacred books of
Babylon, and introduced into the history that he wrote for the use of
the Greeks. After speaking of the last nine antediluvian kings, the
Chaldean priest continues thus.

"Obartes Elbaratutu being dead, his son Xisuthros (Khasisatra) reigned
eighteen sares (64,800 years). It was under him that the Great Deluge
took place, the history of which is told in the sacred documents as
follows: Cronos (Ea) appeared to him in his sleep, and announced that on
the fifteenth of the month of Daisios (the Assyrian month Sivan--a
little before the summer solstice) all men should perish by a flood. He
therefore commanded him to take the beginning, the middle, and the end