May not one discover in this old cosmogonic myth a dim hint of the nebular hypothesis of creation, as it is called?

What more wild and drear is there, even in Indian cosmogonic fable, than that strange carbonigenous era of the globe, whose deposits, in the shape of petrified forests, now keep us warm and cook our food, and whose relics and souvenirs are pressed between the stone leaves of the secondary rock for preservation by the Omnipotent Herbalist?

It is probable that more extended research would disclose a complete cosmogonic myth to replace the somewhat fragmentary material here offered.

The tales of animals, cosmogonic myths, and the folk-lore of Buso, are all told in prose, with many inflections of the voice, and often accompanied by an animated play of dramatic gesture.

Persons who had gone through the preliminary ceremonies of initiation were permitted at length to hear, though under strict obligation of secrecy, this ancient religion and cosmogonic doctrine, revealing the destination of man and the certainty of posthumous rewards and punishments, all disengaged from the corruptions of poets, as well as from the symbols and allegories under which they still remained buried in the eyes of the vulgar.

Take the early chapters of Genesis, or any savage cosmogonic myth you please.

The same thing is true of a part of the poetical material, particularly the prayers; but the cosmogonic and other mythical poems appear to go back, at least so far as their material is concerned, to a very remote antiquity, and it is difficult to assign them a definite date.

The cosmogonic poetry is in its outlines not unlike that of Hesiod, but develops the ruder ideas at greater length.

In the second cosmogonic poem the account is more similar to that of the second chapter of Genesis, and its present form originated in or near Babylon.