Note 23 — Chapter I

“This agreement of the traditions of the most diverse peoples manifests itself in a striking manner when compared with the number assigned by the Bible to the antediluvian patriarchs. There are ten in the account in Genesis, and a singular persistence reproduces this number of ten in the legends of a very great number of nations, whose primitive ancestors are still enveloped in the mist of fables.... The preserved fragments of the celebrated historical papyrus of Turin, containing a list of Egyptian dynasties traced in hieratic writing, seem clearly to indicate that the editor of this canon gives ten gods, who in the beginning ruled men.”—Les Origines de l’Histoire d’après la Bible et les Traditions des Peuples Orientaux, par François Lenormant, professeur d’archéologie près la Bibliothèque nationale. Deuxième édition, Paris, 1880. pp. 214, 215, 227.