I do not give now the history of this flood. Before it can be given accurately, we must collect all the scattered traditions about it, compare them, and omitting all fabulous and obviously impossible details, form a narrative of the whole facts. The notions and traditions of the Americans are very various, as they do not always point to this flood. We find them asserting that men were saved in mountains, or caves, on rafts or boats. Few, if any, allude to an ark, but all to a refuge as THBE. Those of Mexico and Peru, are contradictory, alluding to several floods, and particularly the subsequent of Peleg. The most explicit traditions on that score are those of the Linapi nations; although the tribes vary the tale, the holy song of the real Linapi tribe, alludes clearly to a great flood in Asia: when their nations at least was partly saved in _Tula_ (the turtle land) in Central Asia, by the help of a goddess, and Noah or _Nana-bush_. The men were then called _Linowi_ and _Linapi_: two other races of men were saved, the _Owini_ (beings) and the _Tulapewi_, turtlings or atlantes. Besides these foes the _Maskanako_ (strong snakes), _Nakowa_ (dark snakes), and the _Amangamek_, monsters of the sea; who caused this dire flood. These notions are strikingly similar to the Asiatic and Hindu fables about the turtle saving mankind at the flood. _Nana-bush_ is evidently Noah, his name means _Noah-Noah-hare_, or the _Great Noah_ and _Hare_. The Chinese accounts of the first flood, do not allude to any ark, but mountains were the refuge of mankind. The Hindu account is very near the mosaic; but has no boat, and many persons were saved. The accounts of the Assyrians, Arabs, Tartars, Egyptians, Lybians, Greeks, Celts, Polynesians, &c. are all different. The mosaic account was borrowed from some ancient source now forgotten. It is said that Noah himself wrote an account of the flood, and preserved ancient records. Divesting the mosaic account from the supernatural and the impossible, we obtain the real tradition of a great aquatic cataclysm. Either a sinking of some lands or an irruption of the ocean, attended with volcanic floods of waters from the Caspian sea (as Humboldt says,) heavy rains, and a change of climate: which overflew the earth or most of it; except some _Thebas_, refuges in mountains, _swimming_ over the waters, as it were: there some men and tribes, many animals, trees and plants were preserved: to spread afterwards again over the earth.