FLOOD, or DELUGE, in Chronology and in Sacred History, refers to that general inundation sent as a punishment on the inhabitants of the Old World for their hardened profligacy, by which every human being was destroyed except Noah and his family, and those shut up with him in the Ark. The date of this great event is differently calculated, but it is generally fixed in the year of the creation 1656, equivalent to B. C. 2348. This Flood or Deluge divides the world into the Antediluvian and Postdiluvian ages.

In this article the attention of the reader is chiefly directed to those traditions which have existed, and which still exist, among various nations relating to the Flood. With the account given by the sacred historian all are presumed to be familiar, and it is therefore unnecessary to quote it at present by way of contrast; that of Josephus is a mere echo of the inspired narrative.

Beginning with the tradition left by the Chaldean priest Berosus, and preserved by Alexander Polyphistor, Noah is described under the character of Oannes-a being literally compounded of a man and a fish, and passing the natural instead of the diluvian night in the ocean. We find Noah also represented under the name of Xisuthrus, "in whose time happened a great deluge," the history of which is thus

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described: "The Deity Cronus appeared to him in a vision, and warned him that upon the 15th day of the month Dæsius there would be a flood, by which mankind would be destroyed. He therefore enjoined him to write a history of the beginning, procedure, and conclusion of all things, and to bury it in the City of the Sun at Sippara; to build a vessel, and take with him into it his friends and relations, and convey on board everything necessary to sustain life, together with all the different animals, birds and quadrupeds, and trust himself fearlessly to the deep. Having asked the Deity whither he was to sail, he was answered, To the gods, upon which he offered up a prayer for the good of mankind. He then obeyed the divine admonition, and built a vessel five stadia in length and two in breadth. Into this he put everything he had prepared, and last of all conveyed into it his wife, his children, and his friends. After the flood had been upon the earth, and was in time abated, Xisuthrus sent out birds from the vessel, which, not finding any food, nor any place whereupon they might rest their feet, returned to him again. After an interval of some days he sent them forth a second time, and they now returned with their feet tinged with mud. He made a trial a third time with these birds, but they

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returned to him no more, from which he judged that the surface of the earth had appeared above the waters. He therefore made an opening in the vessel, and on looking out found that it was stranded upon the side of a mountain, upon which he immediately quitted it, with his wife, his daughter, and the pilot. Xisuthrus then paid his adoration to the earth, and having constructed an altar, offered sacrifices to the gods, and, with those who had come out of the vessel with him, disappeared. Those who remained within, finding that their companions did not return, quitted the vessel with many lamentations, and continually called on the name of Xisuthrus. Him they saw no more, but they could distinguish his voice in the air, and could hear him admonish them to pay due regard to religion; and likewise informing them that it was on account of his piety that he was translated to live with the gods, and that his wife and daughter, and the pilot, had obtained the same honour.-The vessel being thus stranded in Armenia, some parts of it yet remain on the Corcyrean mountains of Armenia, and the people scrape off the bitumen with which it had been outwardly coated, and make use of it for amulets and bracelets."

There is another Babylonian tradition which should not be omitted. Before the awful devastation of waters, says the legend, in which the whole world perished, many ages had passed which were faithfully chronicled by the Chaldeans. In those times they allege that there was a large city called Ano, situated near Libanus (the reader will here recollect that Cain's city was named Enoch), peopled by giants, who governed the whole world. from the rising to the setting of the sun. Those giants, trusting to the greatness of their strength and their stature, became monsters of oppression and tyranny, despisers of religion and of the gods, and there was no kind of wickedness which they did not commit. Some there were who prophesied, and carved out upon stones the things relating to the destruction which was to come upon the world;

but the giants derided all these admonitions, although the anger and revenge of the gods were about to overtake them on account of their impiety and wickedness. There was, however, one of the giants who reverenced the gods, who was more prudent and wiser than the others. His name was Noa, and he dwelt in Syria with his three sons, Sem, Japet, and Cham, and their wives and families. This man, foreseeing from the stars the destruction which was to ensue, began to build a covered ship twenty years before the inundation. When those years had passed, the ocean suddenly broke out, the inland seas, the rivers, and fountains, burst from beneath, attended with the most violent rains from heaven, which continued for many days, and overflowed the mountains. The whole human race was buried in the waters, except this Noa and his family, who were saved in the covered ship, which was lifted up by the waters, and rested at last upon the Gordyæan mountains.

The accounts transmitted by Plutarch, Plato, Diodorus Siculus, and other distinguished authorities, show that the ancient Egyptians maintained the universal deluge, and allude to Noah under the title of Osiris, though in a manner con- * fused and obscure, as was to be expected from a people who had no other guide than corrupted and unwritten tradition. It is remarkable that Plutarch, in his description of Osiris entering the Ark, fixes it in the very month and day of the month on which Noah entered it, and the "windows of heaven" were opened. "It was," he says, "on the 17th day of August, the second month after the autumnal equinox, when the sun passes through Scorpio."-" In the 600th year of Noah's life," says Moses, "in the second month, the 17th day of the month, entered Noah into the Ark." Plato says that a certain Egyptian priest recounted to Solon, out of the sacred books, the history of the universal flood which happened long before the partial inundations known to the Grecians and other nations. The ancient Scythians designated Noah