Page:The Chaldean Account of Genesis (1876).djvu/91

 these successive stages or forms in the Creation, is striking, and leaves no doubt that there was a connection between the two.

The three next tablets in the Creation series are absent, there being only two doubtful fragments of this part of the story. Judging from the analogy of the Book of Genesis, we may conjecture that this part of the narrative contained the description of the creation of light, of the atmosphere or firmament, of the dry land, and of plants. One fragment to which I have alluded as probably belonging to this space is a small portion of the top of a tablet referring to the fixing of the dry land; but it may belong to a later part of the story, for it is part of a speech to one of the gods. This fragment is—

1. When the foundations of the ground of rock [thou didst make]

2. the foundation of the ground thou didst call

3. thou didst beautify the heaven

4. to the face of the heaven

5. thou didst give

6.

There is a second more doubtful fragment which appears to belong to this space, and, like the last, seems to relate part of the creation of the dry land. I give it here under reserve—

1. The god Sar pan

2. When to the god

3. Certainly I will cover?

4. from the day that thou