C., the city of Erech still lay forty miles inland.
Indeed, the city might have been built a thousand years 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.
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