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 must have been a very large body of water; in fact, an ocean.

CHAPTER IV.

The deluge legends of other nations.

A collection of the Deluge legends of other nations will throw light upon the Biblical and Chaldean records of that great event.

The author of the treatise “On the Syrian Goddess” acquaints us with the diluvian tradition of the Arameans, directly derived from that of Chaldea, as it was narrated in the celebrated Sanctuary of Hierapolis, or Bambyce.

“The generality of people,” he says, “tells us that the founder of the temple was Deucalion Sisythes—­that Deucalion in whose time the great inundation occurred.  I have also heard the account given by the Greeks themselves of Deucalion; the myth runs thus:  The actual race of men is not the first, for there was a previous one, all the members of which perished.  We belong to a second race, descended from Deucalion, and multiplied in the course of time.  As to the former men, they are said to have been full of insolence and pride, committing many crimes, disregarding their oath, neglecting the rights of hospitality, unsparing to suppliants; accordingly, they were punished by an immense disaster.  All on a sudden enormous volumes of water issued from the earth, and rains of extraordinary abundance began to fall; the rivers left their beds, and the sea overflowed its shores; the whole earth was covered with water, and all men perished.  Deucalion alone, because of his virtue and piety, was preserved alive to give birth to a new race.  This is how he was saved:  He placed himself, his children, and his wives in a great coffer that he had, in which pigs, horses, lions, serpents, and all other terrestrial animals came to seek refuge with him.  He received them all; and while they were in the coffer Zeus inspired them with reciprocal amity, which prevented their devouring one another.  In this manner, shut up within one single coffer, they floated as long as the waters remained in force.  Such is the account given by the Greeks of Deucalion.