After the death of Ardates, his son, Xisuthrus, reigned eighteen _sori_ (an uncertain period). In his time happened a great deluge, the history of which is thus described: The deity Kronos appeared to him in a vision and warned him that on 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, course and end of all things; and to bury it in the City of the Sun, at Sippara.[1] He was also to build a vessel, and to take with him into it his friends and relatives, he was to put on board of it food and drink, with different reptiles, birds and quadrupeds. As soon as he had made all arrangements he was to commit himself to the deep. Having asked the Deity whither he was to sail, he was answered: “To the gods, after having offered a prayer for the good of mankind.” Whereupon, not being disobedient to this heavenly vision, he built a vessel five stadia in length and two in breadth. Into this he put everything which he had prepared, and embarked in it with his wife, his children and his personal friends. After the flood had been upon the earth and had in due time abated, Xisuthrus sent out some birds from the vessel, which not finding any food, nor any place where they could rest, returned to the vessel. After an interval of some days, Xisuthrus sent out the birds a second time, and now they returned to the ship with mud on their feet. A third time he repeated the experiment and then they returned no more. Xisuthrus hence judged that the earth was visible above the waters, and accordingly he made an opening in the vessel, and seeing that it was stranded upon the summit of a certain mountain, he quitted it with his wife and daughter and the pilot. Having then paid his adoration to the earth, and having built an altar and offered sacrifice to the gods, he, together with those who had left the vessel with him, disappeared. Those who had remained in the vessel, when they found that Xisuthrus and his companions did not return, in their turn left the vessel and began to look for him, calling him by his name. Him they saw no more, but a voice came to them from heaven, bidding them lead pious lives, and so join him who was gone to live with the gods, and further informing them that his wife, his daughter and the pilot had shared the same honor. It told them, moreover, that they should return to Babylon, and how it was ordained that they should take up the writings that had been buried in Sippara, and impart them to mankind, and that the country where they then were was the land of Armenia. Having heard these words this company offered sacrifices to the gods, and taking a circuit journeyed to Babylon. The vessel having been thus stranded in Armenia, and parts of it still remaining in the mountains of the Corcyræans (or Cordyæans, _i. e._, the Kurds of Kurdistan), in Armenia, the people scrape off the bitumen from the vessel and make use of it by way of charms.