supposed the destruction to have been, caused by a continuous down-pour
of rain for forty days and forty nights.

In the Chaldean legend, on the contrary, the rain lasted but seven days;
and we see that the writer had a glimpse of the fact that the
destruction occurred in the midst of or near the sea. The ark of Genesis
(tebah) was simply a chest, a coffer, a big box, such as might be
imagined by an inland people. The ark of the Chaldeans was a veritable
ship; it had a prow, a helm, and a pilot, and men to manage it; and it
navigated "the sea."

4. The Chaldean legend represents not a mere rain-storm, but a
tremendous cataclysm. There was rain, it is true, but there was also
thunder, lightning, earthquakes, wind, a water-spout, and a devastation
of mountain and land by the war of the elements. All the dreadful forces
of nature were fighting together over the doomed land: "the archangel of
the abyss brought destruction," "the water rose to the sky," "the
brother no longer saw his brother; men no longer knew each other;" the
men "filled the sea like fishes;" the sea was filled with mud, and "the
corpses floated like sea-weed." When the storm abated the land had
totally disappeared-there was no longer "any continent." Does not all
this accord with "that dreadful day and night" described by Plato?

5. In the original it appears that Izdhubar, when he started to find the
deified Khasisatra, travelled first, for nine days' journey, to the sea;
then secured the services of a boatman, and, entering a ship, sailed for
fifteen days before finding the Chaldean Noah. This would show that
Khasisatra dwelt in a far country, one only attainable by crossing the
water; and this, too, seems like a reminiscence of the real site of
Atlantis. The sea which a sailing-vessel required fifteen days to cross