sun.

of "stretching out the north over the empty place, and hanging the earth upon nothing." The diurnal and annual motions of the earth are not only hinted at, but contained in the word by which they described that body.arets, the earth, is derived from y rets, a wheel, which not only revolves round its own axis, but has a progressive motion like that of the earth round the And the dissolution of the world was known to Job when he said" that "man lieth down, and riseth not till the heavens be no more:" and that God "compasseth the waters with limits till the day and night come to an end." Whilst Peter reveals to us the precise agent that shall be employed in this awful work; for he tells us, that "the day of the Lord shall come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burnt up."

It hath been objected to this reasoning, that there are other parts of Scripture which speak of the stability of the earth, and of the motion of the sun and heavenly bodies. But it may be answered, that such expressions might only have been used in accommodation to visible appearances; and as they are still used by philosophers in their common conversation every day, who talk of the rising and setting of the sun, and of the stability of the earth, as readily as the unlettered peasant.

From the hints given to us in the Book of Job, one would be inclined to consider the system of Pythagoras, or, as it is now called, of Copernicus, as only a more complete developement of that which was anciently known to that patriarch. Perhaps, also, the same be

a Job. xiv. 12.

b Job xxvi, 10.

2 Peter iii. 10.

d 1 Chron. xvi. 30. Ps. xciii. 1. xcvi. 10. civ. 5. cxix. 90. Eccles. i. 4. * Gen. xv. 17. xix, 23. Ps. xix. 5, 6. Eccles. i. 5.

lief was entertained by the more intelligent among the Jews, in the earlier period of their history, who drew their information from the sacred oracles, rather than from the erroneous and extravagant cosmogonies of their heathen neighbours. And who knows but the philosophers who went to the East in search of truth may have received, while in their neighbourhood, those hints which, when reported to others, or improved by themselves, may have laid the foundation of those theories which have excited the admiration of posterity? One thing is certain, that Pythagoras travelled into Egypt and Chaldea in quest of knowledge; that he resided in these countries for many years; that, in passing and repassing to Chaldea, he could scarcely fail to become acquainted with so singular a people as the Jews; and it is not unlikely that the hints he may have received of their political, religious, and astronomical systems, may have served to perfect those views which he was afterwards pleased to communicate to the world. If the above reasoning be true, the land of Canaan has been the cradle both of religion and philosophy: and from it, as from a centre, have the rays of science and religion diverged among the nations. Nor is it any objection to this reasoning, that we have no written records, particularly stating that this was the case for the Jews had equal advantages with the Egyptians and Chaldeans for making observations in astronomy, and there would be some in that country, as well as in the others, whose genius led them to these pursuits; but the reason why we hear nothing of their discoveries is, that their religion prevented them from associating with other nations, and, consequently, prevented strangers from residing among them. Perhaps the real state of the case, then, was as follows: That they had as just views of the great outline of the solar system as any of their neigh

bours, but that the observations made by the Egyptians and Chaldeans were more within the reach of Pythagoras and other enquiring travellers, and therefore recorded by them in their several writings. But since we are strangers to the discoveries which the Jews may have made in astronomical science, is there no way to come at an approximation to the truth? Are there no borrowed lights which may serve in some measure to dispel the gloom, and furnish us with the probable progress of that science among this interesting people? The only reply that can be made to this query, is to state the hints we have in ancient authors of the astronomy of Egypt and Chaldea, and to suppose that these formed the outlines of the astronomical creed among the thinking part of the Jews in those times. Let us begin then with Chaldea. We are informed by the peripatetic philosopher Simplicius, on the authority of Porphyry, that when Babylon was taken by Alexander the Great, Callisthenes collected the astronomical observations of the Chaldeans for 1903 years, and transmitted them to Aristotle, at the desire of the Macedonian king. We know for certain, that three eclipses of the moon were accurately observed at Babylon in the years 719 and 720, before the Christian æra; and it is highly probable that, in the temperate and cloudless climate of Chaldea, these were not their earliest attempts in practical astronomy. Ptolomy, who made use of these eclipses for determining the mean motion of the moon, has recorded other four lunar eclipses, the last of which was observed at Babylon, about 367 years before Christ. The astronomical knowledge of the Chaldeans, however, is more unequivocally marked in their luni-solar periods, which must have been deduced from a great number of accurate observations. Their period of eclipses, which they called Saros, consisting of 223 lunations, or 6585

days, 8 hours, at the end of which, the moon returned to the very same position, with regard to the sun, and to her own node, and perigee. The eclipses, therefore, which were observed during one period, enabled them to predict those which were to take place in the period that succeeded, and all the other phenomena which resulted from the combined motions of the two luminaries. The accurate tables of Delambre and Mason make this period 6585 days, 7 hours, 42 minutes, and 31 seconds, so that the error of the Chaldean astronomers amounted only to 17 minutes and 31 seconds. The Chaldeans, if we trust to the authority of Albategnius, made the sidereal year 365 days, 6 hours, and 11 minutes; and it appears, from their luni-solar periods, that their tropical year was 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, and 30 seconds. Hence we have great reason to believe that they must have been acquainted with the precession of the equinoctial points; a fact which they might easily have deduced from the heliacal rising and setting of the fixed stars. Aristotle informs us, that the occultations of the planets and stars by the moon had been frequently observed by the Chaldeans; and we learn from Diodorus, that they considered the comets as subject to the same laws with the planetary bodies, but revolving in orbits which receded to a greater distance from the earth. From the occultations of the stars, they conjectured that the eclipses of the sun were caused by the interposition of the moon; but, though they seem to have been acquainted with the sphericity of the earth, they were ignorant of the cause of lunar eclipses. Ptolomy mentions an observation upon Saturn, which was made about the year before Christ, 228, the only one upon the planets which history has recorded; and Diodorus Siculus informs us, that the Chaldeans were acquainted with the periods of all the planets, and regarded the moon as the

smallest of the heavenly bodies, and the nearest to the earth. So much then for the discoveries that are said to have been made by the Chaldeans.-It is difficult to determine, with any degree of probability, whether astronomy was first cultivated in Egypt or Chaldea. The Egyptians, according to Diogenes Laertius, maintained that 48,853 years elapsed between the time of Vulcan and Alexander the Great; and that, during that period, they had observed 373 eclipses of the sun, and 832 of the moon. These numbers represent pretty nearly the proportion between the eclipses of the two luminaries, and though fewer than what really happened, they were those which had been particularly noticed, and therefore recorded by the Egyptians. From the heliacal rising of Sirius, the Egyptians ascertained the length of their year to be 365 days; and hence they discovered the Sothic or Canicular period of 1460 years, at the end of which the months and festivals of their civil year of 365 days returned to the same seasons. According to Macrobius, the Egyptians were acquainted with the revolution of Mercury and Venus round the sun, and the order which the planets held in the system; and hence it is probable that Diodorus Siculus is correct in asserting that they were also acquainted with the stations and retrogradations of the planets. Phenomena so striking as eclipses of the sun and moon could not fail to excite the attention of this intelligent people. Conon, the friend of Archimedes, collected many eclipses of the sun, that had been observed by the Egyptians; and it is highly probable that they employed formulæ resembling those of the Indians and Siamese, for computing their celestial phenomena. Thales appears to have received from the Egyptians his method of predicting an eclipse of the sun; and Diogenes Laertius asserts it as his opinion, that the earth had a spherical