Every visitation of a comet would, therefore, necessarily
eventuate in a glacial age, which in time would entirely pass away.
And our storms are bred of the conflict between the heat and cold of
the different latitudes. Hence, it may be, that the Tertiary climate
represented the true climate of the earth, undisturbed by comet
catastrophes; a climate equable, mild, warm, stormless. Think what a
world this would be without tempests, cyclones, ice, snow, or cold!
Let us turn now to the evidences that man dwelt on the earth during
the Drift, and that he has preserved recollections of the comet to
this day in his myths and legends.
[1. "Popular Science Monthly," July, 1876, p. 283.]
{p. 113}
PART III
The Legends
CHAPTER I.
THE NATURE OF MYTHS.
IN a primitive people the mind of one generation precisely repeats
the minds of all former generations; the construction of the
intellectual nature varies no more, from age to age, than the form of
the body or the color of the skin; the generations feel the same
emotions, and think the same thoughts, and use the same expressions.
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