Such is, in short, the Bible story of the great flood that destroyed, at a remote age of the world, all life upon the earth. It is a narrative circumstantially told, with day, month, and year all indicated, and it forms a good subject for comparison with the Babylonian account, with which it agrees so closely in all the main points, and from which it differs so much in many essential details. As in the case of the Babylonian story of the Creation, it has been thought well not only to give a fairly full translation of the Babylonian story of the Flood, but also to indicate under what circumstances that story appears in the series of tablets in which it is found. The first to detect the nature of the series of tablets giving the story of the Flood was the late George Smith, who had unrivalled opportunities of making himself thoroughly acquainted with the treasures of the British Museum in the matter of Assyrian records. As the story runs, it was whilst searching for the fragments of the Creation-series that he came across a fragment of a tablet mentioning that “the ship rested on the mountain of Niṣir,” and this at once suggested to him that this was a reference to the Flood, as, in fact, it turned out to be. Continued and unremitting research among the treasures of the Department in which he was employed enabled him to bring together a large number of other fragments of the series, leaving, in fact, very little indeed for any future student to do in the way of collecting together texts from the fragments that he had an opportunity of examining. The _Daily Telegraph_ expedition to Assyria, which was conducted by Mr. Smith himself, enabled him to add many other fragments to those which he had already recognized in the Oriental Department of the British Museum, and Mr. Rassam’s very successful excavations in the same place have since very considerably increased the list of additions. The story of the Flood, as known to the Babylonians and Assyrians, is one chapter or book of a legend consisting of twelve similar divisions, the first line of the series beginning with the words _Ša naqba imûru_, “He who saw everything,” and to this is added in the colophons, “the legend of Gilgameš.” The number of fragments extant is large, but the individual tablets are very imperfect, that giving the account of the Flood being by far the most complete, though even that has very regrettable lacunæ. Incomplete as the legend is as a whole, an attempt will nevertheless be made here to give some sort of a connected story, which may be regarded as accurate in all its main details.