{p. 219}

How wonderfully does all this accord with what we have shown would
follow from the earth's contact with a comet!

The earth is wet and covered with mud, the clay; the sun is long
absent; at last he returns; he dries the mud, but his face is still
covered with the remnants of the great cloud-belt; "his heat has no
strength"; he shows himself only in glimpses; he shines through the
fogs like an image in a mirror; he is not like the great blazing orb
we see now.

But the sun, when it did appear in all its glory, must have been a
terrible yet welcome sight to those who had not looked upon him for
many years. We read in the legends of the Thlinkeets of British
Columbia, after narrating that the world was once "dark, damp, and
chaotic," full of water, with no sun, moon, or stars, how these
luminaries were restored. The great hero-god of the race, Yehl, got
hold of three mysterious boxes, and, wrenching the lids off, let out
the sun, moon, and stars.

"When he set up the blazing light" (of the sun) "in heaven, the
people that saw it were at first afraid. Many hid themselves in the
mountains, and in the forests, and even in the water, and were
changed into the various kinds of animals that frequent these
places."[1]

Says James Geikie:

"Nor can we form any proper conception of how long a time was needed