165}
in the waters; or the intelligent children of the earth betake
themselves to deep caverns for protection from the conflagration.
How completely does all this accord, in chronological order and in
its details, with the Scandinavian legend; and with what reason
teaches us must have been the consequences to the earth if a comet
had fallen upon it!
And the most ancient of the ancient world, the nation that stood
farthest back in historical time, the Egyptians, believed that this
legend of Pha?ton really represented the contact of the earth with a
comet.
When Solon, the Greek lawgiver, visited Egypt, six hundred years
before the Christian era, he talked with the priests of Sais about
the Deluge of Deucalion. I quote the following from Plato
("Dialogues," xi, 517, _Tim?us_):
"Thereupon, one of the priests, who was of very great age, said, 'O
Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are but children, and there is never an
old man who is an Hellene.' Solon, hearing this, said, 'What do you
mean?' 'I mean to say,' he replied, 'that in mind you are all young;
there is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition,
nor any science which is hoary with age.
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