tle were
domesticated; and the metals copper and iron were applied to use--the
latter probably meteoric iron; and hence, it may be, the Hindoo and
Hellenic myths of Twachtrei and Hephaestos in connection with the
thunderbolt. We learn, however, incidentally, as already mentioned, in
the description of Eden in Genesis, chapter 2d, that there was a
previous stone age, in which "flint, pearls or shell beads, and
stream-gold" were the chief treasures of man, for this is implied in
the "gold, bedolach, and onyx" of the land of Havilah. It is certain
also, from the discoveries made in Assyria, on the site of Troy, and
elsewhere, that the use of stone implements continued in Western Asia
long after the deluge. In the time of Noah the distinction of clean
and unclean beasts, and the taking of seven pairs of certain beasts
and birds into the ark, imply that certain mammals and birds were
domesticated.[108]

2. Before the flood, as already remarked, there was a division of man
into two nationalities or races; and there was a citizen, an
agricultural, a pastoral, and a nomadic population. Farther, the
remarkable progress in the arts implied in the building of such
structures as the Tower of Babel, and other temple and palace mounds
in Assyria, and of the pyramids of Egypt, within a few generations
after the deluge, proves that a very advanced material civilization
and great skill in constructive arts had been reached in antediluvian
times.[109]

3. After the deluge, the arts of the antediluvians and their citizen
life were almost immediately revived in the plain of Shinar; but the
plans of the Babel leaders, like those of many others who have
attempted to force distinct tribes into one nationality, failed. The
guilt attributed to them probably relates to the attempt to break up
the patriarchal and tribal organization, which in these early times
was the outward form of true religion, in favor of some sort of
national organization, not compatible with the extension of man
immediately over the world, and tending to consolidation into dense
communities. It may be a question here whether the tribal communism
which has prevailed among the American Indians and other rude races
was the primitive form of society which the Babel-builders essayed to
change, or whether the Semitic patriarchal system had at first
prevailed, and the Babel difficulties were connected with a conflict
between this and communism or despotism, both new Turanian o