explain, had years of various durations, some even so inconsiderable as a diurnal revolution, a simple day and night. Those of three and of four months, however, seem to have been universally prevalent. Plato thus places the defeat of the Atlantides by the Athenians, 9000 years before Solon. Solon lived 620 years before Christ. These, taken together, and calculated as years of three months, the date when this island disappeared, does not in any very extravagant degree differ from that of the deluge. It accords, likewise, with the synchronisms, not only of the Septuagint, but of all the nations. that we have historical or astronomical calculations to deduce from. But, one circumstance is peculiarly striking; the chief of these people, whom the Greeks afterwards made a mountain of, and on whose back they placed the heavens; this man is said to have been the first who exposed himself in a vessel upon the ocean.* Critics also contend, that Atlas was an astronomer, and that he first instructed the Egyptians in the knowledge of the sphere and the planetary system.

docuit quæ maximus Atlas;

Hic canit errantem lunam, solisque labores,
Arcturum, pluviasque Hyadas, geminosque Triones. ‡

But

Clemen. Alexand.

+ Cicero

Virgil.

But what does Homer allude to when he calls Ocean the father of the gods, and Orpheus the father of men?

Here, however, for a moment let us attend to what is to be drawn from more distant sources of information. Among the Hindoos we find as it were a new creation, descending from the sun and moon, and whose epochs of creation and deluge absolutely agree with the Mosaical accounts. This race commenced at a deluge. It is called the third age. The periods, indeed, are calculated as millions of years, but as I have above remarked, they are not to be taken as solar years. The Hindoos, as well as their disciples or contemporaries, the Chaldeans and the Egyptians, had years of arbitrary determinations. They had months of fifteen days; and years sixty days, or two months. In a word, they had also their solar and their lunar years; and hence probably, their dynasties of the sun and moon. One of the most curious books, in fact, in the Sanscreet language, and one of the oldest after the Vedas, commences, "The sun causes the "division of day and night, which are of two

of

sorts, those of men, and those of gods; the

day for the labour of all creatures, in their se"veral employments, the night for their slum

3

"ber.

66

"ber. A month is a night and a day of the patriarchs. A year is a night and a day of the gods. Four thousand years of the gods, at "the beginning and at the end, are as many "hundred years. In three successives ages are "thousands and hundreds diminished by one. "The aggregate of four ages amounting to "twelve thousand divine years, is called an age of "the gods; and a thousand such divine ages "added together, must be considered as a day of "Brahma: his night also has the same dura"tion." And such is the arrangement of infinite time, which the Hindoos believe to have been revealed from heaven. * But had not the Greeks their year of six months at a much later period? The age of the world, however, by attention to such modes of computation, will be found to be very nearly the same in the writings of Moses, and in the calculations and traditions of the Brahmans. Of this also, we have a remarkable coincidence among the Persians. But what is still more curious, each of the respective four ages of the Hindoos, is made to finish with a deluge; and this deluge to be universal, and to be followed by a new creation. Does not Hesiod make Jupiter create and destroy four ages

in

Sir William Jones.
De Lisle,

Pliny, Hist. Nat.

in the same manner? These ideas of people so distantly situated must be founded on some similar grounds of historical fact.

Plato says, all that had passed for eight thousand years previous to his time, was recorded in the sacred books of Saïs. In these books, the Atlantic island was said to have been swallowed up. But let us take a very able investigator's calculations on this question. Bailly, in treating of the third age of the Hindoos, which answers to the date, as well as authenticates the astronomical phænomena, contained betwen our æra of creation and of deluge, establishes these very remarkable epochas.

The Egyptians in the reign of the Sun 2340.

And as a farther confirmation, the same writer gives the singular coincidence of the age of the world, as given by four distinct and distantly situated people.

By

By the ancient Egyptian chronology

By the Hindoo chronology

By the Persian chronology

By the chronology of the Jews, according to Josephus

5544 years.

• 5502.

5501.

5555

The universal effusion of the waters was, in fact, the basis of an incredible number of ancient opinions. The Chaldeans had the history of their Xisurus, who was the Mosaic Noah. The Egyptians said, Mercury had engraven his doctrines of science or columns, which had resisted the violence of a deluge.* The Grecians had their Phryxus, and their Deucalion's flood, the accounts of which, in epoch, cause, manner, preservation, resting of the ark, or vessel on a high mountain, and the subsequent sacrifices to the Divinity, tally exactly with the traditionary accounts of Noah. The Chinese have their Peyrun, a mortal, loved and protected by the gods, who saved himself in a vessel at the general inundation. The Hindoos say, the waters of the ocean spread over and covered the face of the whole earth, excepting one mountain to the north; that one woman, with seven men, saved themselves on this mountain; that they saved also two animals and two plants of each species, to the amount in the whole of one million