[7] The following arguments so closely resemble those of Professor Huxley in a recent Article in the _Nineteenth Century_, that it may be well to state that they were written before I had seen that article. I insert them not as attempting to vie with the greatest living master of English prose, but as showing that the same conclusions inevitably force themselves on all who understand the first rudiments of Modern Science. Consider then what the narrative of the Deluge really tells us. First, as to date. The Hebrew Bible, from which our own is translated, gives the names of the ten generations from Noah to Abraham, with the precise dates of each birth and death, making the total number of years 297 from the Flood to Abraham. For Abraham, assuming him to be historical, we have a synchronism which fixes the date within narrow limits. He was a contemporary of Chedorlaomer, or Khuder-Lagomar, known to us from Chaldæan inscriptions as one of the last of the Elamite dynasty, who subverted the old dynasty in the year 2280 B.C., and who reigned for 160 years. Abraham's date is, therefore, approximately about 2200 B.C., and that of the Deluge about 2500 B.C. The Septuagint version assigns 700 years more than that of the Hebrew Bible for the interval between Abraham and Noah; but this is only done by increasing the already fabulous age of the patriarchs. Accepting, however, this Septuagint version, though it has been constantly repudiated by the Jews themselves, and by nearly all Christian authorities from St. Jerome down to Archbishop Usher, the date of the Deluge cannot be carried further back than to about 3000 B.C., a date at least 1000, and more probably 2000, years later than that shown by the records and monuments of Egypt and Chaldæa, when great empires, populous cities, and a high degree of civilization already existed in those countries. The statement of the Bible, therefore, is that, at a date not earlier than 2200 B.C., or at the very earliest 3000 B.C., a deluge occurred which "covered all the high hills that were under the whole heaven," and prevailed upon the earth for 150 days before it began to subside; that seven months and sixteen days elapsed before the tops of the mountains were first seen; and that only after twelve months and ten days from the commencement of the flood was the earth sufficiently dried to allow Noah and the inmates of the Ark to leave it.