emblems-the winged Baalim in several forms. Important, therefore, is the change which has now taken place in the solar emblem. The winged king's-head is become what the sacred eagle was before. Another step and our investigation will be brought to a conclusion. We have seen several instances of the adaptation of the other solar emblems to the zodiacal signs, expressive of the attributes of kings, or of the influence of seasons. I believe the signs of the zodiac to have been antediluvian. But I believe them then to have been simply the figures of men and animals, expressive of the seasons over which they then, and in that country, presided, and that the compound signs, such as we now possess, were the results of Sabæan composition in the Babylonian chamber of imagery. Take for example the Capricorn. In the Indian zodiac this sign is composed of the Goat and the Fish as separate animals. A beautiful emblem of the season, when in Assyria the mountain rains caused the rivers to overflow. The union of these two into one animal is plainly shewn in the ancient Babylonian gem, where the priest appears to be worshipping the new moon, in the sign of the Capricorn; above is the branch of an ashre or grove, and the ladder-like figure below, I believe to represent the five degrees, which, according to the ancient division of the circle, into sixty parts, would belong to each sign. Sagittarius is another compound sign, and one which comes closer to our present application. A figure from the zodiac of Dendera may be referred to. It is expressive of the hunting season-not in Egypt, where the country in the autumn is flooded-but in Chaldea, from whence its origin is apparent. The figure of a king with two faces under one crown, aptly representing the united kingdoms of Nineveh and Babylon, and the whole emblem forming no very imaginative allusion to the founder of both empires--that "hunter mighty before God"-Nimrod himself, in commemoration of whom this sign became altered in Chaldea. But how was it altered? Amongst the beautiful sculptures of Nineveh we find the winged horse, the Pegasus, as we find winged bulls without any alteration in the heads where the zodiacal sign is simply intended. Add now one of the very king's heads which we have just spoken of in the sun, and we have a very tolerable Sagittarius. We have only therefore to suppose the original sign to have been a horse, and the formation of the Sagittarius is complete. It is the same with the fish. In places abounding in fish, the sign which proclaimed the prevalence of the waters and the great fishing season, would be the one in which the sun would be implored to shine propitiously; and the favorite form of Baal in such places, would be that of the Fish-God of Dagon, at Dorcetus-of Vishnu in India, and of our Mermaid, but which was in truth the king's head on the sign of the Fish. A curious representation of two fish-men, is given in Calmet's dictionary, in which the attitude of reverence to an aged man, combined with the dove, bearing over it the emblem of the sun, appears to connect it with the assuaging of the waters during the month the sun was in the sign of the Fish. And surely, when we have seen instances of such an application of this sacred emblem to so many other signs, we shall not hesitate to express our firm conviction that it would be much more universally applied to those two great and most important signs, the Lion and the Bull, which all antiquity unites in placing first amongst its sculptured monuments. What origin of these remarkable monuments, the winged lion and the winged bull of Nineveh, can we conceive more simple, or more probable? We have in them nothing but the flattering, yet consistent emblems, which the Sabæan idolatry would choose and create, as descriptive of the attributes of royalty. The winged Baal in the chamber of the vernal equinox, so forcibly expressive of the goodness, clemency, and paternal government of the monarch: the sun, in the fierce sign of raging heat at the summer solstice, no less descriptive of his majesty, and power, and terror to his enemies. Thus placed at the gates of the royal palace, the sun-descended king would issue from his chamber, clad in his gorgeous robes, before his almost worshipping subjects, like his royal father in the signs of his greatest influence, to scatter blessings on his people, or destruction on his enemies. You must not suppose these emblems confined to ancient Nineveh; they belong to all the Sabæan nations. It is remarkable, that amongst those very sculptures in the tombs of Persia, from which a figure of the winged king," clothed with the sun," was obtained, we find also the winged bull precisely as represented at Nineveh, only of inferior sculpture; and even when we go to other and more distant nations still, and search the emblems of the Mongolian monuments, we find the very same allusion. What emblem could be better chosen for the royal tombs? What could more properly represent the expected resurrection of the sundescended monarch than the first rising of the solar orb, at the commencement of a new year, upon the shoulder of the Bull-the then vernal equinox! Or what could be more strikingly depicted upon the standard of the Sabæan monarch than what we actually find upon the ancient standard of the emperor of Mogul-the sun upon the royal chamber of the lion, coming forth in his fury and majesty to defend his royal son, and take vengeance on the enemies of the heavendescended monarch! Should these views be founded in truth, as I believe they are, so long as those monuments remain in our metropolis they will be the standing memorials of the truth of Holy Scripture. The antiquity of astronomical science which they prove, together with its rapid decline after the deluge, the great event so often marked upon the astronomical sculptury, proclaims a downward progress in the history of mankind. It tells us what we might expect, that astronomy in its simple knowledge of the general system of the heavens, fell with man; with man to rise again. The universality of the common zodiac, and its great antiquity proclaimed by the unanimous choice of the Bull and the Lion (the signs of the ancient vernal equinox and summer solstice), by the Sabæan nations, confirms more strongly than almost any other proof the dispersion of mankind from a common country, and that country the one which Scripture points out-the region of Assyria-meanwhile the firm conviction that in these monuments we possess the memorials of the earliest equinoctial and solstitial points,—the remarkable fact, that not one single sculptured monument has placed the solar orb upon the head of any sign which might proclaim a date anterior to that assigned by Moses for the creation of the world-must ever remain, to my mind, a strong corroboration of the sacred narrative. FOURTH MEETING-November 26, 1849. J. B. YATES, Esq., in the Chair. THOMAS NUTTALL, Esq., F.L.S., and the Rev. THOMAS CORSER, M.A., were elected corresponding members of the Society. The following donations were announced :-- Proceedings of the Ashmolean Society of Oxford: from Proceedings of the London Botanical Society: from the Proceedings of the Warwickshire Natural History Essay on Meteorology: from the Ipswich Literary Plattner on the Blowpipe, translated by Dr. James S. The Rev. Dr. HUME exhibited some Relics from an old Roman road near Warrington; also some Wooden Weapons, Paddles, &c., from New Zealand; likewise two Cloaks made of Opossum Skins. MR. YATES, brought for the inspection of the Society, four parchment rolls, dated 30th March, 1744, signed and certified by the acting Justices for the division of Prescot, county of Lancaster, and containing the returns made by order of the Privy Council respecting Papists and Non-Jurors. The designs of the Pretender at that period had induced the government to keep a watchful eye upon those parts of the kingdom in which the Roman Catholics were most numerous. In the division of Prescot, about six hundred and twenty reported Papists were accordingly summoned by the Justices to appear and take the oaths of abjuration, supremacy, and allegiance, together with the declaration against transubstantiation. This was complied with by five persons only-all the rest having neglected or refused. In these documents the names and residences of all the parties are given. Mr. BALMAN exhibited a Fossil of the genus Sigillaria, from the coal measures of Denbighshire. The paper for the evening, of which the following is a short abstract, was entitled, PHILOSOPHY OF GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES, The organs of speech are the same in all men; and the same general laws have influenced language, in all ages and in every country. There is also a similarity in the circumstances of all people who visit a new country, either as wanderers or as settlers; and the principles of human nature, so far as they concern the present subject, are permanent. It is not surprising therefore, that we find the names of places given everywhere, and in all ages, according to a fixed system; on the contrary |