[30] I have referred above (note, p. 463) to my failure to obtain trade statistics. This circumstance has caused me to fail also in fully carrying out the original plan of this paper. I had intended not only to give a general view of the recent condition of the Irish people, but to enter somewhat fully into its causes, and discuss the probabilities of the future. The great revival in prosperity, which I have imperfectly sketched, was closely connected with the cross-channel trade. At present, affairs look sufficiently gloomy both here and in England; and the forecast of the future depends mainly upon the prospect of revival in English trade. THE DELUGE: ITS TRADITIONS IN ANCIENT NATIONS. Of all traditions relating to the history of primitive humanity, by far the most universal is that of the Deluge. Our present purpose is to pass under review the principal versions of it extant among the leading races of men. The concordance of these with the Biblical narrative will bring out their primary unity, and we shall thus be able to recognize the fact of this tradition being one of those which date before the dispersion of peoples, go back to the very dawn of the civilized world, and can only refer to a real and definite event. But we have previously to get rid of certain legendary recollections erroneously associated with the Biblical Deluge, their essential features forbidding sound criticism to assimilate them therewith. We allude to such as refer to local phenomena, and are of historic and comparatively recent date. Doubtless the tradition of the great primitive cataclysm may have been confused with these, and thus have led to an exaggeration of their importance; but the characteristic points of the narrative admitted into the Book of Genesis are wanting, and even under the legendary form it has assumed these events retain a decidedly special and restricted character. To group recollections of this nature with those that really relate to the Deluge would be to invalidate, rather than confirm, the consequences we are entitled to draw from the latter.