flint. Gathering all together as well as he could, the Hawk flew
straight up into the sky, where he struck fire with the flints, lit
his ball of reeds, and left it there whirling along all in a fierce
red glow as it continues to the present; for it is the sun. In the
same way the moon was made, but as the tules of which it was
constructed were rather damp, its light has always been somewhat
uncertain and feeble."[2]

The Algonquins believed in a world, an earth, "anterior to this of
ours, but one _without light or human inhabitants_. A lake burst its
bounds and submerged it wholly."

This reminds us of the Welsh legend, and the bursting of the lake
Llion (see page 135, _ante_).

The ancient world was united in believing in great cycles of time
terminating in terrible catastrophes:

[1. Captain Cook's "Second Voyage," vol. ii, pp. 232-235;

2. "Climate and Time," Croll, pp. 60, 61.

3. Powers's Pomo MS., Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 86.]

{p. 223}

Hence arose the belief in Epochs of Nature, elaborated by ancient
philosophers into the Cycles of the Stoics, the great Days of Brahm,
long periods of time rounding off by sweeping destructions, the
Cataclysms and Ekpyrauses of the universe. Some thought in these all