'If we identify the antediluvians of Genesis with the oldest men known to geological and archæological science, the parallelism is somewhat marked in physical characteristics and habits of life, and also in their apparently sudden and tragical disappearance from Europe and Western Asia, along with several of the large mammalia which were their contemporaries. If the Deluge is to be accepted as historical, and if a similar great break interrupts the geological history of man, separating extinct races from those which still survive, why may we not correlate the two? If the Deluge was misused in the early history of geology, by employing it to account for changes which took place long before the advent of man, this should not cause us to neglect its legitimate uses, with reference to the early human period. It is evident that if this correlation be accepted as probable, it must modify many views now held as to the antiquity of man. In that case the modern gravels and silts, spread over the plateaus between the river valleys, will be accounted for, not by any greater overflow of the existing streams, but by the abnormal action of currents of water diluvial in their character. Further, since the historical Deluge must have been of very limited duration, the physical changes separating the deposits containing the remains of palæocosmic men from those of later date would in like manner be accounted for, not by the slow processes imagined by extreme uniformitarians, but by causes of a more abrupt and cataclysmic character.'[39]
[39] See also Howorth, _The Mammoth and the Flood_, and papers by Professor Prestwich in _Journal Geol. Society_ and _Trans. Royal Society_ and by Andrews, Winchell, and others in America.
We may proceed to inquire as to whether the position which we have now reached is likely to be permanent, or may represent merely one shifting phase of opinion. For this purpose we may formulate these conclusions in a few general statements, merely referring to the evidence on which they are based, as any complete discussion of this would necessarily be impossible within the limits of this work. We may first summarise the present position of the matter as indicated by historical and scientific research, altogether independently of the Bible.[40]