it; and in order that the improvement should be thorough, to destroy along with it all cattle, creeping things, and birds, who had not (so far as we are aware,) entered into the same kind of irregular alliances with other species as men. Nevertheless, he had still a lingering fondness for his handiwork, badly as it had turned out; and therefore determined to preserve enough of each kind of animal, man included, to carry on the breed without the necessity of resorting a second time to creation. Acting upon this resolve, he ordered an individual named Noah to build an ark of gopher-wood, announcing that he would shortly destroy all flesh, but wished to save Noah and his three sons, with their several wives. He also desired him to take two members of each species of beasts and birds, or, according to another account, seven of each clean beast and bird, and two of each unclean beast; but in any case taking care that each sex should be represented in the ark. When Noah had done all this, the waters came up from below and down from above, and there was an increasing flood for forty days. All terrestrial life but that which floated in the ark was destroyed. At last the waters began to ebb, and finally the ark rested on the 17th day of the 7th month on Mount Ararat. After forty more days Noah sent out a raven and a dove, of which only the dove returned. In seven days he sent the dove again, and it returned, bringing an olive-leaf; and after another week, when he again sent it out, it returned no more. It was not, however, till the 27th of the 2d month of the ensuing year (these chroniclers being very exact about dates) that the earth was dried, and that Noah and his party were able to quit the ark. To commemorate the goodness of God in drowning all the world except himself and his family, Noah erected an altar and offered burnt-offerings of every clean beast and every clean fowl. The effect was instantaneous. So pleased was Jehovah with the "pleasant smell," that he resolved never to destroy all living beings again, though still of opinion that "the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth" (Gen. vi. 7, 8).
The myth of the deluge is very general. The Hebrews have no exclusive property in it. Many different races relate it in different ways. We may easily suppose that the partial deluges to which they must often have been witnesses suggested the
