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Philologists at the same time declare that a similar inference may be drawn from the vast periods requisite for the divergence of different languages from the parent stock,⁹⁷ while the testimony of the monuments and sculptures of ancient Egypt assures us that race distinction of as marked a type as occurs at the present day existed at so early a date⁹⁸ as to preclude the possibility of the derivation of present nations from the descendants of Noah within the limited period usually allowed.

These difficulties vanish, if we consider the Biblical and Chaldean narratives as records of a local catastrophe, of vast extent perhaps, and resulting in general but not total destruction, whose sphere may have embraced the greater portion of Western Asia, and perhaps Europe; but which, while wrecking the great centres of northern civilization, did not extend southwards to Africa and Egypt.⁹⁹ The Deluge legends indigenous in Mexico at the date of the Spanish conquest, combining the Biblical incidents of the despatch of birds from a vessel with the conception of four consecutive ages terminating in general destruction, and corresponding with the four ages or Yugas of India, supply in themselves the testimony of their probable origin from Asia. The cataclysm which caused what is called the Deluge may or may not have extended to America, probably not. In a future page I shall enumerate a few of the resemblances between the inhabitants of the New World and of the Old indicative of their community of origin.

I refer the reader to M. Lenormant’s valuable essay¹⁰⁰ for his critical notice on the dual composition of the account in Genesis, derived as it appears to be from two documents, one of which has been called the Elohistic and the other the Jehovistic account, and for his comparison of it with the Chaldean narrative exhumed by the late Mr. George Smith from the Royal Library of Nineveh, the original of which is probably of anterior date to Moses, and nearly contemporaneous with Abraham.

I transcribe from M. Lenormant the text of the Chaldean narrative, because there are points in it which have not yet been commented on, and which, as it appears to me, assist in the solution of the Deluge story: —

I will reveal to thee, O Izdhubar, the history of my preservation – and tell to thee the decision of the gods.

The town of Shurippak, a town which thou knowest, is situated on the Euphrates. It was ancient, and in it [men did not honour] the gods. [I alone, I was] their servant, to the great gods – [The gods took counsel on the appeal of] Anu – [a deluge was proposed by] Bel – [and approved by Nabon, Nergal and] Adar.

And the god [Êa,] the immutable lord, – repeated this command in a dream. – I listened to the decree of fate that he announced, and he said to me: – “Man of Shurippak, son of Ubaratutu – thou, build a vessel and finish it [quickly]. – By a [deluge] I will destroy substance and life. – Cause thou to go up into the vessel the substance of all that has life. – The vessel thou shalt build – 600 cubits shall be the measure of its length – and 60 cubits the amount of its breadth and of its height. – [Launch it] thus on the ocean and cover it with a roof.” – I understood, and I said to Êa, my lord: – “[The vessel] that thou commandest me to build thus, – [when] I shall do it – young and old [shall laugh at me].” – [Êa opened his mouth and] spoke. – He said to me, his servant: – “[If they laugh at thee] thou shalt say to them: [Shall be punished] he who has insulted me, [for the protection of the gods] is over me. – … like to caverns … – … I will exercise my judgment on that which is on high and that which is below … – … Close the vessel … – … At a given moment that I shall cause thee to know, – enter into it, and draw the door of the ship towards thee. – Within it, thy grains, thy furniture, thy provisions, – thy riches, thy men-servants, and thy maid-servants, and thy young people – the cattle of the field and the wild beasts of the plain that I will assemble – and that I will send thee, shall be kept behind thy door.” – Khasisatra opened his mouth and spoke; – he said to Êa, his lord: – “No one has made [such a] ship. – On the prow I will fix … – I shall see … and the vessel … – the vessel thou commandest me to build [thus] – which in …¹⁰¹

On the fifth day [the two sides of the bark] were raised. – In its covering fourteen in all were its rafters – fourteen in all did it count above. – I placed its roof and I covered it. – I embarked in it on the sixth day; I divided its floors on the seventh; – I divided the interior compartments on the eighth. I stopped up the chinks through which the water entered in; – I visited the chinks and added what was wanting. – I poured on the exterior three times 3,600 measures of asphalte, – and three times 3,600 measures of asphalte within. – Three times 3,600 men, porters, brought on their heads the chests of provisions. – I kept 3,600 chests for the nourishment of my family, – and the mariners divided amongst themselves twice 3,600 chests. – For [provisioning] I had oxen slain; – I instituted [rations] for each day. – In [anticipation of the need of] drinks, of barrels and of wine – [I collected in quantity] like to the waters of a river, [of provisions] in quantity like to the dust of the earth. – [To arrange them in] the chests I set my hand to. – … of the sun … the vessel was completed. – … strong and – I had carried above and below the furniture of the ship. – [This lading filled the two-thirds.]

All that I possessed I gathered together; all I possessed of silver I gathered together; all that I possessed of gold I gathered – all that I possessed of the substance of life of every kind I gathered together. – I made all ascend into the vessel; my servants male and female, – the cattle of the fields, the wild beasts of the plains, and the sons of the people, I made them all ascend.

Shamash (the sun) made the moment determined, and – he announced it in these terms: – “In the evening I will cause it to rain abundantly from heaven; enter into the vessel and close the door.” – The fixed moment had arrived, which he announced in these terms: “In the evening I will cause it to rain abundantly from heaven.” – When the evening of that day arrived, I was afraid, – I entered into the vessel and shut my door. – In shutting the vessel, to Buzurshadirabi, the pilot, – I confided this dwelling with all that it contained.

Mu-sheri-ina-namari¹⁰²– rose from the foundations of heaven in a black cloud; – Ramman¹⁰³ thundered in the midst of the cloud – and Nabon and Sharru marched before; – they marched, devastating the mountain and the plain; – Nergal¹⁰⁴ the powerful, dragged chastisements after him; – Adar¹⁰⁵ advanced, overthrowing before him; – the archangels of the abyss brought destruction, – in their terrors they agitated the earth. – The inundation of Ramman swelled up to the sky, – and [the earth] became without lustre, was changed into a desert.

They broke … of the surface of the [earth] like …; – [they destroyed] the living beings of the surface of the earth. – The terrible [Deluge] on men swelled up to [heaven]. – The brother no longer saw his brother; men no longer knew each other. In heaven – the gods became afraid of the waterspout, and – sought a refuge; they mounted up to the heaven of Anu.¹⁰⁶– The gods were stretched out motionless, pressing one against another like dogs. – Ishtar wailed like a child, – the great goddess pronounced her discourse: – “Here is humanity returned into mud, and – this is the misfortune that I have announced in the presence of the gods. So I announced the misfortune in the presence of the gods, – for the evil I announced the terrible [chastisement] of men who are mine. – I am the mother who gave birth to men, and – like to the race of fishes, there they are filling the sea; – and the gods by reason of that – which the archangels of the abyss are doing, weep with me.” – The gods on their seats were seated in tears, – and they held their lips closed, [revolving] future things.

Six days and as many nights passed; the wind, the waterspout, and the diluvian rain were in all their strength. At the approach of the seventh day the diluvian rain grew weaker, the terrible waterspout – which had assailed after the fashion of an earthquake – grew calm, the sea inclined to dry up, and the wind and the waterspout came to an end. I looked at the sea, attentively observing – and the whole of humanity had returned to mud; like unto sea-weeds the corpses floated. I opened the window, and the light smote on my face. I was seized with sadness; I sat down and I wept; – and my tears came over my face.

I looked at the regions bounding the sea; towards the twelve points of the horizon; not any continent. – The vessel was borne above the land of Nizir, – the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass over. – A day and a second day the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass over; – the third and fourth day the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass over; – the fifth and sixth day the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass over. – At the approach of the seventh day, I sent out and loosed a dove. The dove went, turned, and – found no place to light on, and it came back. I sent out and loosed a swallow; the swallow went, turned, and – found no place to light on, and it came back. I sent out and loosed a raven; the raven went, and saw the corpses on the waters; it ate, rested, turned, and came not back.

I then sent out (what was in the vessel) towards the four winds, and I offered a sacrifice. I raised the pile of my burnt-offering on the peak of the mountain; seven by seven I disposed the measured vases,¹⁰⁷– and beneath I spread rushes, cedar, and juniper wood. The gods were seized with the desire of it, – the gods were seized with a benevolent desire of it; – and the gods assembled like flies above the master of the sacrifice. From afar, in approaching, the great goddess raised the great zones that Anu has made for their glory (the gods’).¹⁰⁸ These gods, luminous crystal before me, I will never leave them; in that day I prayed that I might never leave them. “Let the gods come to my sacrificial pile! – but never may Bel come to my sacrificial pile! for he did not master himself, and he has made the waterspout for the Deluge, and he has numbered my men for the pit.”

From far, in drawing near, Bel – saw the vessel, and Bel stopped; – he was filled with anger against the gods and the celestial archangels: – “No one shall come out alive! No man shall be preserved from the abyss!” – Adar opened his mouth and said; he said to the warrior Bel: – “What other than Ea should have formed this resolution? – for Ea possesses knowledge and [he foresees] all.” – Ea opened his mouth and spake; he said to the warrior Bel: – “O thou, herald of the gods, warrior, – as thou didst not master thyself, thou hast made the waterspout of the deluge. – Let the sinner carry the weight of his sins, the blasphemer the weight of his blasphemy. – Please thyself with this good pleasure, and it shall never be infringed; faith in it never [shall be violated]. – Instead of thy making a new deluge, let hyænas appear and reduce the number of men; instead of thy making a new deluge, let there be famine, and let the earth be [devastated]; – instead of thy making a new deluge, let Dibbara¹⁰⁹ appear, and let men be [mown down]. – I have not revealed the decision of the great gods; – it is Khasisatra who interpreted a dream and comprehended what the gods had decided.”

Then, when his resolve was arrested, Bel entered into the vessel. – He took my hand and made me rise. – He made my wife rise, and made her place herself at my side. – He turned around us and stopped short; he approached our group. – “Until now Khasisatra has made part of perishable humanity; – but lo, now, Khasisatra and his wife are going to be carried away to live like the gods, – and Khasisatra will reside afar at the mouth of the rivers.” – They carried me away and established me in a remote place at the mouth of the streams.

This narrative agrees with the Biblical one in ascribing the inundation to a deluge of rain; but adds further details which connect it with intense atmospheric disturbance, similar to that which would be produced by a series of cyclones, or typhoons, of unusual severity and duration.

The intense gloom, the deluge of rain, terrific violence of wind, and the havoc both on sea and land, which accompany the normal cyclones occurring annually on the eastern coast of China, and elsewhere, and lasting but a few hours in any one locality, can hardly be credited, except by those who have experienced them. They are, however, sufficient to render explicable the general devastation and loss of life which would result from the duration of typhoons, or analogous tempests, of abnormal intensity, for even the limited period of six days and nights allotted in the text above, and much more so for that of one hundred and fifty days assigned to it in the Biblical account.

As illustrating this I may refer to a few calamities of recent date, which, though of trivial importance in comparison with the stupendous event under our consideration, bring home to us the terribly devastating power latent in the elements.

In Bengal, a cyclone on October 31, 1876, laid under water three thousand and ninety-three square miles, and destroyed two hundred and fifteen thousand lives.

A typhoon which raged in Canton, Hongkong, and Macao on September 22, 1874, besides much other destruction, destroyed several thousand people in Macao and the adjacent villages, the number of corpses in the town being so numerous that they had to be gathered in heaps and burnt with kerosene, the population, without the Chinese who refused to lend assistance, being insufficient to bury them.

A tornado in Canton, on April 11, 1878, destroyed, in the course of a few minutes, two thousand houses and ten thousand lives.

In view of these few historical facts, which might be greatly supplemented, there appears to my mind to be no difficulty in believing that the continuance, during even only six days and six nights, of extraordinarily violent circular storms over a given area, would, especially if accompanied by so-called tidal or earthquake waves, be sufficient to wreck all sea-going and coasting craft, all river boats, inundate every country embraced within it to a very great extent, submerge each metropolis, city, or village, situate either in the deltas of rivers, or higher up their course, sap, unroof, batter down, and destroy all dwellings on the highlands, level forests, destroy all domestic animals, sweep away all cultivated soil, or bury it beneath an enormous thickness of débris, tear away the soil from the declivities of hills and mountains, destroy all shelter, and hence, by exposure, most of those wretched human beings who might have escaped drowning on the lower levels. The few survivors would with difficulty escape starvation, or death from subsequent exposure to the deadly malaria which would be liberated by the rooting up of the accumulated débris of centuries. This latter supposition appears to me to be directly indicated by the passage towards the end of the extract referring to famine, and to the devastation of the earth by Dibbara (the god of epidemics).

It is noticeable that in this account there is no suggestion of complete immersion, Khasisatra simply says there is not any continent (i. e. all the hill ranges within sight would stand out from the inundation like islands), while he speaks of his vessel being arrested by the mountain of Nizir, which must consequently have been above the surface of the water.

Neither is there any such close limitation of the number of persons preserved, as in the Biblical story, for Khasisatra took with him his men-servants, maid-servants, and his young people, while the version transmitted by Berosus (see Appendix to this Chapter), states that Xisuthros embarked his wife, children, and his intimate friends, and that these latter subsequently founded numerous cities, built temples, and restored Babylon.

We have thus a fair nucleus for starting a fresh population in the Euphrates valley, which may have received accessions from the gradual concentration of scattered survivors, and from the enterprise of maritime adventurers from the African coast and elsewhere, possibly also nomads from the north, east, and west may have swelled the numbers, and a polyglot community have been established, which subsequently, through race distinctions, jealousies, and incompatibility of language, became again dismembered, as recorded in the history of the attempted erection of the Tower of Babel.

Confining our attention for the moment to this one locality, we may imagine that the young population would not be deterred by any apprehension of physical danger from reinhabiting such of the old cities as remained recognizable; since we see that men do not hesitate to recommence the building of cities overthrown by earthquake shocks almost before the last tremblings are over; or, as in the case of Herculaneum and Pompeii, within the range of volcanoes which may have already repeatedly vomited destroying floods of lava. Yet, in this instance, they would probably invest the calamity with a supernatural horror, and regard it, as the text expresses it, as a chastisement from the gods for their impiety. If this were so, the very memory of such cities would soon be lost, and with it all the treasures of art and literature which they contained.¹¹⁰

The Hindu account is taken from the S’atapatha-Brâhmana, a work of considerable antiquity, being one of a series which Professor Max Müller believes to have been written eight hundred years before Christ. A literal translation of the legend, as given in this venerable work, is as follows: —

“To Manu in the morning they brought water for washing, just as they bring it for washing the hands. As he was using the water, a fish came into his hand. This (fish) said to him, ‘Preserve me, and I will save thee.’ (Manu said), ‘From what wilt thou preserve me?’ (The fish replied), ‘A flood will carry away all these creatures; from that I will preserve thee.’ (Manu said), ‘How is thy preservation (to be effected)?’ (The fish replied), ‘As long as we are small, there is great danger of our destruction; fish even devours fish: at first preserve me in a jar. When I grow too big for that, cut a trench, and preserve me in that. When I outgrow that, carry me to the sea; then I shall be beyond (the reach of) danger.’ Soon it became a great fish; it increased greatly. (The fish said), ‘In so many years the flood will come; make a ship and worship me. On the rising of the flood enter the ship, then I will preserve thee.’ Having preserved the fish he brought it to the sea. In the same year indicated by the fish (Manu) made a ship and worshipped the fish. When the flood rose he entered the ship; the fish swam near him: he attached the cable of the ship to his (the fish’s) horn. By this means the fish carried him over the northern mountain (Himalayas). (The fish said), ‘I have preserved thee: fasten the ship to a tree. But lest the water cut thee off whilst thou art on the mountain, as fast as the water subsides thou wilt descend with it.’ Accordingly he descended (with the water); hence this became ‘Manu’s Descent’ from the northern mountain. The flood had carried away all those creatures, Manu alone was left. He being desirous of offspring performed a sacred rite; there also he offered a pâka-sacrifice. With clarified butter, coagulated milk, whey, and curds, he made an offering to the waters. In a year a female was produced; and she arose unctuous from the moisture, with clarified butter under her feet. Mitra and Varuna came to her; and said to her, ‘Who art thou?’ (She said), ‘The daughter of Manu.’ (They said), ‘Say (thou art) our (daughter).’ ‘No,’ she replied, ‘I am verily (the daughter) of him who begot me.’ They desired a share in her; she agreed and did not agree. She went on and came to Manu. Manu said to her, ‘Who art thou?’ ‘Thy daughter,’ she replied. ‘How, revered one, art thou my daughter?’ (She replied), ‘The offerings which thou hast cast upon the waters, – clarified butter, coagulated milk, whey, and curds, – from them thou hast generated me. I am a blessing. Do thou introduce me into the sacrifice. If thou wilt introduce me into the sacrifice, thou wilt be (blessed) with abundance of offspring and cattle. Whatever blessing thou shalt ask through me, will all be given to thee.’ Thus he introduced her in the middle of the sacrifice; for the middle of the sacrifice is that which comes between the final and the introductory prayers. He, desirous of offspring, meditating and toiling, went with her. By her he begot this (offspring), which is (called) ‘The offspring of Manu.’”

The correspondence of this legend with the Biblical and the other accounts is remarkable. We have the announcement of the Deluge, the construction of a ship, the preservation therein of a representative man, the settlement of the vessel on a mountain, the gradual subsidence of the water, and the subsequent re-peopling of the world by the man thus preserved. The very scene of the cataclysm is in singular agreement with the other accounts; for the flood is said to carry Manu “over the northern mountain.” This places the scene of the Deluge in Central Asia, beyond the Himalaya mountains, and it proves that the legend embodies a genuine tradition brought by the progenitors of the Hindus from their primæval home, whence also radiated the Semitic and Sinitic branches of mankind.

There has been much discussion as to whether the great inundation which occurred in China during the reign of Yao is identical with that of Genesis or not. The close proximity of date lends a strong support to the assumption, and the supposition that the scene of the Biblical Deluge was local in its origin, but possibly widespread in its results, further favours the view.

As the rise of the Nile at Cairo is the only intimation which the inhabitants of Lower Egypt have of the tropical rains of Central Africa, so the inundation of the countries adjacent to the head waters of the great rivers of China may alone have informed the inhabitants of that country of serious elemental disturbances, only reaching, and in a modified form, their western frontier; and it may well have been that the deluge which caused a national annihilation in Western Asia was only a national calamity in the eastern portion of it.

This view is strengthened if we consider that Chinese history has no record of any deluge prior to this, which could hardly have been the case had the Chinese migrated from their parent stock subsequent to an event of such importance; assuming that it had occurred, as there seems valid reason to suppose, within the limits of written history. The anachronism between the two dates assigned by Chinese authors (2297 B.C.) and the Jewish historian’s calculation (2104 B.C.) is only one hundred and ninety-three years, and this is not so great but that we may anticipate its being explained at some future date. Strauchius’ computation of 2293 B.C. for the date of the Biblical deluge is within four years, and Ussher’s (2349-2348) within fifty-one of the Chinese one. The reason for supposing the deluge of Yao to be historically true, will be inferred from the arguments borrowed from Mr. Legge on the subject of the Shu-king, in another portion of this volume. It is detailed in the great Chinese work on history, the T‘ung-këen-kang-muh, by Choo He, of which De Mailla’s History of China professes to be a translation.

This states that the inundation happened in the sixty-first year of the reign of Yao (2297 B.C.), and that the waters of the Yellow River mingled with those of the Ho-hi-ho and the Yangtsze, ruining all the agricultural country, which was converted into one vast sea.

But neither in the Bamboo Books nor in the Shu-king do we find that any local phenomena of importance occurred, with the exception of the inundation. In fact, the first work is singularly silent on the subject, and simply says that in his sixty-first year Yao ordered K‘wan of Ts‘ung to regulate the Ho, and degraded him in his sixty-ninth for being unable to effect it, as we learn elsewhere.

The Shu is more explicit. The Emperor, consulting one of his chief officials on the calamity, says: “O chief of the four mountains, destructive in their overflow are the waters of the inundation. In their vast extent they embrace the mountains and overtop the hills, threatening the heavens with their floods, so that the inferior people groan and murmur.”

According to De Mailla’s translation, K‘wan laboured uselessly for nine years, the whole country was overrun with briars and brushwood, the people had almost forgotten the art of cultivating the ground – they were without the necessary seeds – and wild animals and birds destroyed all their attempts at agriculture.

In this extremity Yao consulted Shun, his subsequent successor, who recommended the appointment of Yu, the son of K‘wan, in his father’s place.

Yu was more successful, and describes his labours as follows: —

“The inundating waters seemed to assail the heavens, and in their vast extent embraced the mountains and over-topped the hills, so that people were bewildered and overwhelmed. I mounted my four conveyances,¹¹¹ and all along the hills hewed down the woods, at the same time, along with Yih, showing the multitudes how to get flesh to eat.

“I also opened passages for the streams throughout the nine provinces, and conducted them to the sea. I deepened, moreover, the channels and canals, and conducted them to the streams, at the same time, along with Tseih, sowing grain, and showing the multitudes how to procure the food of toil in addition to flesh meat.”

Yu’s success is simply chronicled in the Bamboo Books as, “In his seventy-fifth year Yu, the Superintendent of Works, regulated the Ho.”

There was a legend extant in China in the times of Pinto, which he gives in his book, of the original Chinese having migrated from a region in the West, and, following the course of the Ho in boats, finally settling in the country adjacent to Pekin. That some such event took place is not unlikely. Its acceptance would explain much that is difficult.

The pioneers, pushing through a country infested with hostile aborigines, who would immediately after their passage close up the road of communication behind them – pioneers who may have been fugitives from their kindred through political commotions, or expelled by successful enemies – would have a further barrier against return, even were they disposed to attempt it, in the strong opposing current which had borne them safely to their new homes.

It is probable that such a journey would form an entirely new departure for their history, and that a few generations later it would resemble a nebulous chronological zone, on the far side of which could be dimly seen myths of persons and events representing in reality the history of the not very remote ancestors from whom they had become separated. The early arrivals would have been too much occupied with establishing themselves in their new dominions to be able to give much attention to keeping records or preserving other than the most utilitarian branches of knowledge which they had brought with them. The volumes of their ancestors were probably, like the clay tablets of the royal library of Babylon, not of a portable nature, at all events to fugitives, whose knowledge would, therefore, be rather of a practical than of a cultivated nature, and this would soon become limited for a while to their chiefs and religious instructors, the exigencies of a colony menaced with danger prohibiting any general acquisition or extension of learning.

In this way we can account for the community of the fables relating to the remote antiquity of the Chinese with those of Chaldean and Indian mythology, and with the highly civilized administration and astrological knowledge possessed by Yao and Shun as herediton of Fuh Hi, &c.

We can account for their possession of accurate delineations of the dragon, which would form an important decoration of the standards and robes of ceremony which were companions of their flight, while their descriptions of the animal and its qualities would have already entered into the realms of fanciful exaggeration and myth.

The dragon of Yao and Shun’s time, and of Yu’s time was, in my opinion, an aquatic creature, an alligator; but the dragon of their ancestors was a land lizard, which may even have existed down to the time of the great cataclysm which we call the Deluge, and the memory of which is best preserved in the Chinese drawings which have been handed down from remote antiquity, and have travelled from the great Central Asian centre, which was once alike its habitat and that of their ancestors. Its history may perhaps become evolved when the great store of book knowledge contained in the cuneiform tablets, representing the culture of the other branch of their great ethnological family, has been more extensively explored.

Geologists of the present day have a great objection to the bringing in of cataclysms to account for any considerable natural changes, but this one I conceive to have been of so stupendous a nature as to have been quite capable of both extinguishing a species and confusing the recollection of it. The mere fact of the story of the dragon having survived such a period argues greatly, in my mind, for the reality of its previous existence.

Extending our consideration, we are brought face to face with another very important fact, namely, that a large proportion of the human race content themselves with ephemeral structures. Thus, for example, the Chinese neither have now, nor at any time have had, any great architectural works. “The finest building in China is a reproduction, on a large scale, of the tent; and the wooden construction is always imitated where the materials are stone or marble. The supports, often magnificent logs, brought, at great expense, specially from the Straits, represent tent-poles; and the roof has always the peaked ends and the curves that recall the drooping canvas of the marquee. Architecture evidently died early; it never had life enough to assimilate the new material which it found when it migrated into China Proper. The yamen is a slightly glorified cottage; the temple is an improved yamen. Sculpture is equally neglected in this (æsthetically) benighted country. The human form is as dignified and sightly, to Chinese eyes at least, in China as in the West; but it never seems to have occurred, throughout so many hundreds of years, to any Chinaman to perpetuate it in marble or bronze, or to beautify a city with statues of its deities or great men.”¹¹²