The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1920-12-03
..rHE FLOOD" AND ARAFAT.
NIesopOtamia Under Water, the Mounds
Of Ararat There TO Ground the Ark.

NleSUIODdUila
Of Ararat There TO Ground the Ark.
"Some new light has been thrown on
the flood, at least new light to me" says
Rev. s. r. Kellerman in the Universal
list Leader. II came upon it in a re-
cent report of the government. The
article is from a British source, and it
is incorporated, by permission of the
Royal Geographical society of London,
into the annual report of the Smithson-
ian institution printed in 1910. The
food is incidental in the article. The
article is on Mesopotamia. 1t is the
report of Sir William Willcocks, who
made a survey of the Tigris- Euphrates
delta with n view to rehabilitating the
territory. The survey was made at the
instance of the Turkish government 10
years ago.
Wen might the Turkish government
have considered rehabilitating this land,
which was once the garden spot of the
world, called Babylonia, the cradle of
the human race, and land of an ancient
and fOurishing civilization, For under
the mSrule of the unspeakable Turk it
has gradually declined and become an
arid waste.
Sir William started his survey at the
Garden of Eden" and surveyed south
ward. Somewhere above the modern
cities of Bagdad on the Tigris and Hit
on the Euphrates its delta begins, and it
EOuJIIutS LONdEu IUt 1eISIdn gun II
is a land of rich alluvial deposits, and
in the zenith of it's power it produced
immense crops the whole year round.
There are two seasons, summer and
winter. The summer produces cotton,
corn and rice, while the winter produces
wheat, barley and beans. All the crops
need water. But all the rainfall within
the watersheds of these rivers occurs in
the winter The rivers are flooded in
March, April and May. To water the
summer crops, therefore. those ancient
nations erected dams across the Tigris
and the EuphTates, built reservoirs to
contain the water. and dug canals,
trenches and bitches through which to
distribute it.
1t is related in local tradition that
Nimrod, meaning 'steep of descent"
spoken of in Genesis as a mighty hunt
err threw dam across the Tigris.
These old dams and irrigation sys-
TENS were erected not far from the
cities of Bagdad and Hit.
In the lapse of time and in the decline
Of those old empires, dating back no one
knows how far, the dams might have
fallen into decay, the reservoirs become
weakened, and the bitches and canals
filled up and choked with silt, until in
one of these annual rainfallS, when it
rained for 40 days and 40 nights" and
the rivers overlooked their banks. the old
dams might have given way, and then
some enemy army might have taken ad-
vantage Of the winter freShet and broken
down the dykes and let the waters flood
the delta and the valleys.
Everything was drowned in the great
flood. perhaps as far down as the Per-
sian gulf, except Noah and his little
band. who found safety in the ark The
waters rose to a height of % cubits'
Genesis :20,) "a feet AS the waters
naturally flowed south, doubtless the ark
was carried down with the current be-
yOnd the confluence of the rivers. still
south of Ur Of the Chaldees. There the
waters form an eddy, which probably
saved the ark from being carried down
into the Gulf of Persia. The ark found
resting place upon q mound (mistranS-
lated mOuntain), called Ararat All the
mounds, of which there were many, in the
delta and the valleys. We're submerged
beneath this flood of 10 cubits, 24 feet,
of water.
These mounds in Mesopotamia are
not to be COMPOUNDED with the mountain
which now bears the name of Ararat
situated in Armenia. The Garden of
Eden was not in Armenia. The cradle
OF the human race was not Armenia.
MeSOpOtamia was the seat of the garden.
the scene of the food, the location of
the confusion of tongues, and the land
where Abram started on his journey to
land that God should give him. Fiji
teen GublIS VI WdLeEy II IeeL OF water,
could not have covered the top of the
mountain now called Ararat. But it
was sufficient to cover all the mounds
and to drown every living thing. except
Noah and his family. The modern
mountain Of Ararat in Armenia is 1899
feet high but the old mounds, including
the mound Ararat below Ur of the Chal-
dees can easily be submerged in 10 Gu
bits of water.
There are other accounts Of the flood
than the Bible account There are the
Assyrian and the Chaldcan account The
Bible account is greatly to be preferred
TO tho other, because in the iterpreta-
ton of the food only the Jewish account
lays stress on the moral and religious
aspect and Interpretation of it. 1t came
as punishment to the wickedness of
men. That is right All the works of
men, public and private, individual and
national, must bear a moral stamp.
In the light of recent years, this old
land of MesOpotamia, with the POSSIBLE
tiles of being again made into the garden
spot of the world to be farmed and ex-
plotted for the enrichment and the glory
Of Germany makes of it again a moral
and religious question.