cks and cylinders, never before even guessed at.

Thus we read the wondrous story of ancient days, and breathlessly
wonder what marvellous discovery will thrill us next.

For the earliest account of the old world--a world made up apparently
of a little land and a little water--we turn to an old papyrus, the
oldest in existence, which tells us in familiar words, unsurpassed
for their exquisite poetry and wondrous simplicity, of that great
dateless time so full of mystery and awe.

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth
was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and
the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.... And God said,
Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide
the waters from the waters. And God ... divided the waters which were
under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament....
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered into one
place, and let the dry land appear.... And God called the dry land
Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas."

Thus beautifully did the children of men express their earliest idea
of the world's distribution of land and water.

And where, on our modern maps, was this little earth, and what was
it like? Did trees and flowers cover the land? Did rivers flow into
the sea? Listen again to the old tradition that still rings down the
ages--

"And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden ... and a river
went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted,
and became four heads. The name of the first is Pison ... and the name
of the second river is Gihon; the name of the third river is Hiddekel
(Tigris). And the fourth river is Euphrates."

[Illustration: THE GARDEN OF EDEN WITH ITS FOUR RIVERS. From the
Hereford Map of the World.]

Now look at a modern map of Asia. Between Arabia and Persia there is
a long valley watered by the Tigris and Euphrates, rivers which rise
in Armenia and flow into the Persian Gulf. This region was the
traditional "cradle of the human race." Around and beyond was a great
world, a world with great surging seas, with lands of trees and flowers,
a world with continents and lakes and bays and capes, with islands
and mountains and rivers.

There were vast deserts of sand rolling away to right and to left;
there were mountains up which no man had climbed; there were stormy
seas over which no ship ha