The strait of the Dardanelles is bounded by undisturbed
pleistocene strata forty feet thick, through which, to all
appearance, the present passage has been quietly cut.
That Olympus and Ossa were torn asunder and the waters of the
Thessalian basin poured forth, is a very ancient notion, and an
often cited "confirmation" of Deucalion's flood. It has not yet
ceased to be in vogue, apparently because those who entertain it
are not aware that modern geological investigation has
conclusively proved that the gorge of the Penens is as typical
an example of a valley of erosion as any to be seen in Auvergne
or in Colorado.<13>
Thus, in the immediate vicinity of the vast expanse of country
which can be proved to have been untouched by any catastrophe
before, during, and since the "glacial epoch," lie the great
areas of the AEgean and the Red Sea, in which, during or since
the glacial epoch, changes of the relative positions of land and
sea have taken place, in comparison with which the submergence
of Moel Tryfaen, with all Wales and Scotland to boot, does not
come to much.
What, then, is the relevancy of talk about the "glacial epoch"
to the question of the historical veracity of the narrator of
the story of the Noachian deluge? So far as my knowledge goes,
there is not a particle of evidence that destructive inundations
were more common, over the general surface of the earth, in the
glacial epoch than they have been before or since.
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