traditional account of some great cataclysm of the last glacial epoch.
According to the latest geological students, Wright, McGee and others;
the records of Niagara, the falls of St. Anthony and other glacial
chasms, indicate that the great ice caps receded for the last time
about seven thousand years ago; the latest archeological discoveries
carry our historical knowledge of mankind back nearly four thousand
years B. C., so that some record of the mighty floods which must have
followed the breaking of great glacial dams might well survive in the
stories of the nations.

Abram who came from Ur of the Chaldees brought with him the Chaldean
story of the flood. At that time Ur, now a town fifty miles inland, was
a great seaport of the Persian gulf. Their story of the flood is that
of a maritime people; in it the ark is a well built ship, Hasisadra,
the Chaldean Noah takes on board not only his own family, but his
neighbors and friends; a pilot is employed to guide the course, and
proper provision is made for the voyage. A raven and a dove are sent
out as in the biblical account, and a fortunate landing effected.


L. D. B.





CHAPTER VI.