and rain), but sometimes, when provoked, he broke every thing, uprooted trees, and set the mountain forests on fire. We need not pursue the story further than to say that the celestial beings created a terrestrial couple, whose children bear considerable resemblance to the Greek Jupiter, Apollo, Neptune, and others, and from them came the first Emperors of Japan. In the matter of evidence upon such a point as the conception of a man without a woman, or a woman without a man, it is clear that unsupported assertion is wholly valueless. For example, I may for a time absent myself from general society, and return to it again after a certain interval, having with me a child, whom I assert to be my very own, produced by my own inherent power, just as a tree produces a leaf which grows, matures, and falls. I may frame a romantic account of a dream, in which I was told that if I planted myself in the central bed of a certain garden, and contrived an apparatus for daily watering my buried legs, that a child would sprout from my right side, who should be to me as a daughter. Yet, however ingenious my tale, there is not any one possessing sound sense and knowledge who would believe me. In like manner, if a woman should tell a story analogous, though not identical, she is certain to be discredited; even the assertion of the existence of a divine father would not, if the woman were unmated, save her character from a stain. We may next refer to the legend of Prometheus, inasmuch as in many points it resembles the Hebrew mythos so greatly, that we must imagine they both have a common origin, or that the one is a copy--though an indifferent one, of the other. Prometheus, or forethought, was represented to be the first who made an ordinary man--he formed him of clay, and then animated him with fire from heaven. The Jewish tale asserts that it was Jehovah who made the first man. That man was first formed like a statue out of clay or dust, and had no life until breath was infused into his nostrils. In both stories man alone is formed first. In the Grecian fable Prometheus does not make a consort for his man; nay, he refuses to receive one for himself when the gods send to him Pandora--a paragon of loveliness. Instead of this he gives the damsel to Epimetheus--or after-thought--who takes her carelessly, and finds that even a charming woman is not a guarantee against cares and woes. Some accounts, however, say that Prometheus made both man and woman out of clay. The discrepancy does not signify much, for we see the same in Genesis, wherein we are told in one place that man and woman were made together, whilst in another the story runs that Adam preceded Eve, and that, instead of being formed of dust or clay, the latter was formed of bone.