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 Ragnarok : The Age Of Fire And Gravel by Donnelly, Ignatius Page 5  

to Tezcalipoca, {_Tezcatlipoca--jbh_} given on page 186, _ante_, many references to some material substances falling from heaven; we read:

"Thine anger and indignation has _descended upon us_ in these days, . . . coming down even as _stones, spears, and darts upon the wretches that inhabit_ the earth; this is the pestilence by which we are afflicted and _almost destroyed_." The children die, "broken and dashed to pieces _as against stones_ and a wall. . . . Thine anger and thy indignation does it delight in _hurling the stone and arrow and spear_. The _grinders of thy teeth_" (the dragon's teeth of Ovid?) "are employed, and thy bitter whips upon the miserable of

[1. "Cosmos," vol. i, p. 115.

2. Ibid., p. 115.

3. "Frost and Fire," vol. ii, p. 190.]

{p. 263}

thy people.... Hast thou verily determined that it utterly perish; . . . that the peopled place become a wooded hill and _a wilderness of stones?_ . . . Is there to be no mercy nor pity for us until the _arrows of thy fury are spent?_ . . . Thine arrows and _stones have sorely hurt this poor people_."

In the legend of the Indians of Lake Tahoe (see page 168, _ante_), we are told that the stars were melted by the great conflagration, and they rained down molten metal upon the earth.

In the Hindoo legend (see page 171, _ante_) of the great battle between Rama, the sun-god, and Ravana, the evil one, Rama persuaded the monkeys to help him build a bridge to the Island of Lanka, "and _the stones which crop out through Southern India are said to have been dropped by the monkey builders_."

In the legend of the Tupi Indians (see page 175, _ante_), we are told that God "swept about the fire in such way that in _some places he raised mountains and in others dug valleys_."

In the Bible we have distinct references to the fall of matter from heaven. In Deuteronomy (chap. xxviii), among the consequences which are to follow disobedience of God's will, we have the following:

"22. The Lord shall smite thee . . . with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish.

"23. And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron.

"24. _The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust: from. heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be destroyed_. . . .

"29. And thou shalt _grope at noonday_, as the blind gropeth in darkness."

And even that marvelous event, so much mocked at by modern thought, the standing-still of the sun, at the

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command of Joshua, may be, after all, a reminiscence of the catastrophe of the Drift. In the American legends, we read that the sun stood still, and Ovid tells us that "a day was lost." Who shall say what circumstances accompanied an event great enough to crack the globe itself into immense fissures? It is, at least, a curious fact that in Joshua (chap. x) the standing-still of the sun was accompanied by a fall of stones from heaven by which multitudes were slain.

Here is the record

"11. And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in the going down to Beth-horon, that _the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them_ unto Azekah, and they died: there were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword."

"13. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down _about a whole day_.

"14. And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the Lord fought for Israel."

The "book of Jasher" was, we are told, a very ancient work, long since lost. Is it not possible that a great, dim memory of a terrible

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