Blair Collection > Celtic researches, on the origin, traditions & language, of the ancient Britons

104
VIII.
Of the general stores zchich the nations carried to their
^ respective settlements.
Β
UT to return to the sera of Nimrod's rebellion.
\\'hcn so great a part of the human race had conspired to
resist the execution of the Divine mandate, we nmst suppose
that the famihes who still respeéled the authority of the
patriarch, began to repair towards their allotted habitations,
under the direction of Noah, his sons and their obedient
children. The fathers of families considered their respeélive
portions of the earth as their proper estate, and the inheritance
of their offspring : it must then have been a leading objeéi
\vith them to take personal charge of their lots. They were
not sent forth to explore regions absolutely unknown and
undiscovered. Moah and his sons must have had some
knowledge of the regions of the earth, as far as they had
been known and inhabited before the fiood. In the aci of
partition after the flood, they must have described their
boundaries. The patriarchs who took possession of the larger
divisions must afterwards have assigned to their children their
due proportions. So that in an ;ige or two after the first
partition, every region of the known world, which was
adapted to the support and comfort of human society, must
have received that germe Avhicli gradually expanded into its
primitive nation: and thus Sjiain, and even Britain were
probably colonized by those who were born within a century
of the deluiie.