earlier. Moreover, there is plenty of independent
archaeological and other evidence that in the whole thousand years,
2000 to 3000 B.C, the alluvial plain was inhabited by a numerous
people, among whom industry, art, and literature had attained a
very considerable development. And it can be shown that the physical
conditions and the climate of the Euphrates valley, at that time, must
have been extremely similar to what they are now.

Thus, once more, we reach the conclusion that, as a question of
physical probability, there is no ground for objecting to the reality
of Hasisadra's adventure. It would be unreasonable to doubt that such a
flood might have happened, and that such a person might have escaped
in the way described, any time during the last 5000 years. And if the
postulate of loose thinkers in search of scientific "confirmations"
of questionable narratives--proof that an event may have happened is
evidence that it did happen--is to be accepted, surely Hasisadra's story
is "confirmed by modern scientific investigation" beyond all cavil.
However, it may be well to pause before adopting this conclusion,
because the original story, of which I have set forth only the broad
outlines, contains a great many statements which rest upon just the
same foundation as those cited, and yet are hardly likely to meet with
general acceptance. The account of the circumstances which led up to the
flood, of those under which Hasisadra's adventure was made known to his
descendant, of certain remarkable incidents before and after the flood,
are inseparably bound up with the details already given. And I am unable
to discover any justification for arbitrarily picking out some of
these and dubbing them historical verities, while rejecting the rest as
legendary fictions. They stand or fall together.

Before proceeding to the consideration of these less satisfactory
details, it is needful to remark that Hasisadra's adventure is a mere
episode in a cycle of stories of which a personage, whose name is
provisionally read "Izdubar," is the centre. The nature of Izdubar
hovers vaguely between the heroic and the divine; sometimes he seems a
mere man, sometimes approaches so closely to the divinities of fire and
of the sun as to be hardly distinguishable from them. As I have already
mentioned, the tablet which sets forth Hasisadra's perils is one of
twelve; and, since each of these represents a month and bears a story
appropriate to the corresp