[1. "North Americans of Antiquity," p. 499.] {p. 266} Sanchoniathon, from the other side of the world, tells us, in the Phœnician legends (see page 209, _ante_), that first came chaos, and out of chaos was generated _môt_ or mud. In the Miztec (American) legends (see page 214, _ante_), we are told that in the Age of Darkness there was "nothing but _mud and slime_ on all the face of the earth." In the Quiche legends we are told that the first men were destroyed by fire and _pitch_ from heaven. In the Quiche legends we also have many allusions to the wet and muddy condition of the earth before the returning sun dried it up. In the legends of the North American Indians we read that the earth was covered with great heaps of ashes; doubtless the fine, dry powder of the clay looked like ashes before the water fell upon it. There is another curious fact to be considered in connection with these legends--that the calamity seems to have brought with it some compensating wealth. Thus we find Beowulf, when destroyed by the midnight monster, rejoicing to think that his people would receive a treasure, a fortune by the monster's death. Hence we have a whole mass of legends wherein a dragon or great serpent is associated with a precious horde of gold or jewels. "The Scythians had a saga of the sacred gold which fell _burning_ from heaven. The ancients had also some strange fictions of silver which fell from heaven, and with which it had been attempted, under the Emperor Severus, to cover bronze coins."[1] "In Peru the god of riches was worshiped under the image of a rattlesnake, horned and hairy, _with a tail of gold_. It was said to _have descended from the heavens in_ [1. "Cosmos," vol. i, p. 115.] {p. 267} _the sight of all the people_, and to have been seen by the whole army of the Inca."[1] The Peruvians--probably in reference to this event--chose as their arms two serpents with their tails interlaced. Among the Greeks and ancient Germans the fiery dragon was _the dispenser of riches_, and "_watches a treasure in the earth_."[2] These legends may be explained by the fact that in the Ural Mountains, on the east of Europe, in South America, in South Africa, and in other localities, the Drift gravels contain gold and precious stones. The diamond is found in drift-gravels alone. It is pure carbon crystallized. Man has been unable to reproduce it, except in minute particles; nor can he tell in what laboratory of nature it has been fabricated. It is not found _in situ_ in any of the rocks of an earth-origin. Has it been formed in space? Is it an outcome of that pure carbon which the spectroscope has revealed to us as burning in some of the comets? [1. Brinton's "Myths of the New World," p. 125. 2. Ibid., p. 125.] {p. 268} CHAPTER XI. THE ARABIAN MYTHS.