e we a right
to do so? The narrative speaks of "the whole earth." But what is
the meaning of this expression? Surely not the whole surface of
the earth according to the ideas of _modern_ geographers,
but, at most, according to the conceptions of the Biblical
author. This very simple conclusion, however, is never drawn by
too many readers of the Bible. But one need only cast one's eyes
over the tenth chapter of Genesis in order to become acquainted
with the geographical horizon of the Jews. In the north it was
bounded by the Black Sea and the mountains of Armenia;
extended towards the east very little beyond the Tigris;
hardly reached the apex of the Persian Gulf; passed, then,
through the middle of Arabia and the Red Sea; went southward
through Abyssinia, and then turned westward by the frontiers of
Egypt, and inclosed the easternmost islands of the
Mediterranean (p. 11).

The justice of this observation must be admitted, no less than the
further remark that, in still earlier times, the pastoral Hebrews very
probably had yet more restricted notions of what constituted the "whole
earth." Moreover, I, for one, fully agree with Professor Diestel that
the motive, or generative incident, of the whole story is to be sought
in the occasionally excessive and desolating floods of the Euphrates and
the Tigris.

Let us, provisionally, accept the theory of a partial deluge, and try to
form a clear mental picture of the occurrence. Let us suppose that, for
forty days and forty nights, such a vast quantity of water was poured
upon the ground that the whole surface of Mesopotamia was covered by
water to a depth certainly greater, probably much greater, than fifteen
cubits, or twenty feet (Gen. vii. 20). The inundation prevails upon
the earth for one hundred and fifty days and then the flood gradually
decreases, until, on the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ark,
which had previously floated on its surface, grounds upon the "mountains
of Ararat" [10] (Gen. viii. 34). Then, as Diestel has acutely pointed
out ("Sintflut," p. 13), we are to imagine the further subsidence of the
flood to take place so gradually that it was not until nearly two months
and a half after this time (that is to say, on the first day of the
tenth month) that the "tops of the mountains" became visible. Hence it
follows that, if the ark drew even as much as twenty feet of water, the
level of the inundation fe