it hath perverted thee....therefore shall evil come upon thee.... Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth. Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers (viewers of the heavens), the star-gazers, the monthly prognosticators (that give knowledge concerning the months), stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee" (Isa. xlvii. 10). This, and many such passages which might be adduced, proves the extent to which astrology and magic were practised at Babylon; while it also shews that there was a foundation of wisdom and knowledge, of which these were the perversion; and also that there were monthly prognosticators, or men appointed to regulate the months, which is the conclusion to which we have been led by internal evidence contained in the inscribed bricks of Babylon.

Without some common standard, and some common reckoning of time, a people cannot act in concert: no natural standard exists, which will apply to all the periods which require reckoning, and which would come within the comprehension of the people artificial standards for measuring time have therefore been adopted in all civilized countries. The moon and her quarters, marking periods so obvious and universal, ever would form the basis of popular computations of time, by months and weeks and the return of particular constellations to the same positions would be the popular mark for years. But these two periods, of months and years, could not be made to coincide by the people; for the lunar month will not subdivide the sidereal year, but leaves a remainder of many days; and the sidereal year itself shifts its commencement by the precession of the equinoxes: and though the knowledge and adjustment of these inequalities was of the greatest importance to the people, it was a problem too intricate for them ever to solve. The learned of different countries had various modes of adjusting these inequalities-usually by cycles, in the course of which the popular reckoning of any country again coincided with true time. The Egyptians learnt from Hermes the Canicular cycle of 1461 years, at the end of which their solar year of 365 days (the deficiency of which they were not allowed to make up by intercalation) had receded through every season and returned to the same sidereal point of commencement-namely, the rising of the Dog-star on the first of Thoth this cycle they called the great year. But there was another great year in more general use, which was the Nerus, or cycle of 600 years, to which Josephus refers (Ant. i. 3), and which was that most employed at Babylon: this being one of the cycles on the great stone in the India House, we shall enlarge upon it when we give an explanation of that monument. The Sarus was another

cycle, of, according to Suidas, eighteen years and six months, nearly corresponding with the Metonic lunar cycle of nineteen years this being also inscribed on the stone at the India House, will come under examination at a future opportunity.

These various cycles, and their application to the subdivisions of time, could never be made intelligible to the people; so that a frequent recurrence to the priests would be necessary to regulate their agricultural occupations. No time could be more appropriate for this information than the religious festivals, generally held on the day of the new moon; and we know that in many countries this information was at that time proclaimed, and has given the name kalends (Kaλew, call) to the first of the month, and calendar to the record of this information; an almanack being properly a monthly calendar.

Lunar time the people could observe and reckon for themselves; but the information they continually needed was, how far lunar time fell short of the solar time, and what number of additional days they had to reckon in any month before an expected season would return-before the rains would fall, or the river rise, or the dog-days begin, or the fruits ripen. This information varied every month, and lasted only for a month: it, therefore, was not embodied in the inscription stamped upon the bricks, but orally received, or temporally marked with chalk on the broad margins of the bricks, opposite those points in the permanent stamped record in the middle of the brick where the intercalation was to be made, or when the expected star would appear. The stamped inscriptions, both of Nineveh and Babylon, were designed to answer this purpose for a great number of years; and those of Nineveh being on the edge, and the inscriptions less artificial, would allow of both sides being used for the more copious monthly directions they required; while those of Babylon left ample room for such memoranda on the broad and smooth margins.

But these impressions, though calculated to last for a long period, would in the course of ages become obsolete, and require to be replaced by others, according with the phenomena progressively discovered, or accommodated to actual changes in the heavens. The old calendars would then be exchanged for new ones; and, as nothing is of less worth than an old almanack, these would be used for the common purposes of bricks, as we now find them in the walls of Babylon. Travellers all declare, that the bricks with inscriptions invariably have the face downwards; and it is stated by most, and denied by none, that the bricks found in any one wall have all the same inscription; which pe culiarities seem to admit of no other explanation. The surface is placed downwards, as being the flat side, on which alone it would lie firm and make a solid structure; for the other side had

lain upon matting or reeds, and is always unequal, and generally rounded at the edges. And the bricks in the same wall being alike, is explained by all the calendars of one class becoming obsolete at the same time, and being therefore used up in the same building. The imperfect impressions sometimes found may be accounted for in the same way; as these would not be issued to the people, but might be used from time to time in the buildings going on.

It is quite obvious that such calendars must contain the elements of both lunar and solar time: lunar, which alone they could observe for themselves; and solar, by which their observations might be connected with the seasons. Weeks, or periods of seven days, were ordained from the beginning, to commemorate the time of creation: this period of seven has passed into all countries, and agrees so nearly with the quarter revolution of the moon, that it has become the number by which lunar time is reckoned. The bilinear Ninevite inscriptions always contain seven characters in the first (or right-hand line); and the bricks of Babylon always begin with seven characters, substantially the same in all instances, and precisely alike in the minutest particulars in a great majority of instances. This primary series of seven is the element of lunar time, familiar as such to the people, and at once recognised by them as such; though not exactly representing either the moon's revolution, or the time from one new moon to another.

The exact time of the moon's revolution, or return to the same sign, is twenty-seven days seven hours forty-three minutes; but during that time the sun has been making nearly onetwelfth of his annual revolution, and twenty-nine days twelve hours forty-four minutes elapse before the moon overtakes the sun in his course and it becomes new moon. The number thirty, and its divisors, ten or five, would serve to mark solar time; thirty being the nearest approximation to the solar month, whether it be reckoned from one new moon to the next, or as the twelfth part of the sun's annual revolution; and we find this to have been the estimated length of months in the earliest ages, and down to a late period. Throughout all Scripture, a month is reckoned as thirty days: it was so in the time of Noah; for the Deluge began in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month (Gen. vii. 11), and it concluded in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month (Gen. viii. 4); and the whole time is called 150 days (Gen. vii. 24) or five months of thirty days each. And in the closing book of Scripture a month is reckoned in the same manner; forty-two months being equivalent to 1260 days (Rev. xi. 2, 3, xiii. 5); and 260, divided by 42, gives 30, as the number of days in a month.

The solar year being estimated as twelve months of thirty days each, the sun would every day be supposed to travel over the three-hundred-and-sixtieth part of his course; and the great celestial circle being thus divided, in order that the measures of space and time might be represented by the same unit, every other circle was made to follow the same rule, and the division into 360 degrees has been retained to the present time.

The twelve solar months, each consisting of thirty days, and measuring thirty degrees of the ecliptic, certainly gave origin to the twelve signs of the zodiac; and they were not derived from the lunar mansions, as some have supposed. The lunar mansions bear internal evidence of being an Oriental invention, subsequent to the migration of astronomy, after it had degenerated into puerile fictions and been encumbered with the elephants, dragons, and Briarean monsters of Budh and Bramah; but the zodiacal signs are undeniably of the highest antiquity, before the times to which heathen history ascends: some of them are alluded to in the Book of Job, which, if by Moses, was the earliest of his writings; and even in the East these signs remain unchanged, unencumbered by their elephants and monsters.

On the testimony of Berosus, corroborated by internal evidence in the Zodiac itself, we believe these signs to have been invented by the first Hermes, about 2400 B. C., and when, at the vernal equinox, the sun was in or near the Pleiades. The second Hermes perfected what the first had only designed, having ascertained the true length of the year, and fixed the seasons by the solstices and equinoxes. This took place about 1500 B. C., when the sun at the vernal equinox stood in the cloud whence Taurus emerges; and it was near the time of the coming out of Egypt, Hermes being the contemporary of Moses. The signs so fixed by the second Hermes have passed into all countries where astronomy is known, with no other variation than that occasioned by remoteness of latitude, where the Chaldean animal of some of the signs was supplied by an animal better known in the remote regions of the earth, or by some grotesque form, unlike any thing in nature. Aries passes into the goat, or the deer, in India; and Gemini and Virgo take the Oriental costume. Leo also, though retaining its name and place in the Indian zodiac, has assumed a form as rude as in the heraldic paintings of the middle ages. These facts demonstrate that the zodiac was not invented in India, but in a country where the lion and other animals were commonly known-such as Egypt or Assyria; and the transport of astronomy to India is further evidenced by Virgo being seated in a ship, or chariot, in the Cingalese and some other Öriental zodiacs.

The forms in the Greek and Roman zodiacs were become wholly arbitrary, and bore no reference to the positions of the

stars; but we generally find Aries and Taurus turned from each other, indicating the division to be between Aries and Taurus, as stated above, rather than between Pisces and Aries, as at present. The fixed zodiac, commencing with Aries, seems not to have been generally adopted till the time of Hipparchus, 140 B. C., when the vernal equinox stood near the head of Aries, and the autumnal near Spica Virginis.

Ptolemy himself declares that he altered the forms of some of the constellations, to give the figures a better proportion; and stars which the older astronomers had placed in the shoulders, were thus brought down to the sides of Virgo. "Multis ergo in locis accommodatiora ipsis figuris attribuentes, vocabula priscorum usum immutavimus: sicut, verbi gratia, figuras quas Hipparchus in humeris virginis locat, nos in costis ejus sitas esse dicimus, quoniam distantia earum ad stellas quæ in capite sunt major apparet, quam ad eas quæ in extremitatibus manuum collocantur, hoc autem sicut costis accommodatur." Bayer, by a complete blunder, turned the backs of the figures to the spectator, instead of the faces; and Albert Durer, or some German, put them all into Gothic costume, in which they remained till the time of Flamstead. He judiciously set about revising, or rather reconstructing, the forms of the constellations; and, first laying down the stars themselves correctly, drew the figures according to that part of the body in which the several stars were said to be placed by Hipparchus and Ptolemy, and thus rendered their records of observations fully intelligible and available.

Solar and lunar time will not correspond, as we have already said; the week of seven days will not subdivide the month of thirty days. But some subdivision of the solar month, for comparison with the week, was necessary, before the present incorporation of solar and lunar time. This subdivision was into three portions of ten days, or six portions of five days; of which we find some traces in Scripture, and which is known to have prevailed in several and distant countries. In Syria there seems to have been such a mode of reckoning in the days of Abraham; for Laban speaks of it as a common space of time, like our week or month: "Let the damsel abide with us a few days, at the least ten" (Gen. xxiv. 55). At Babylon also such a reckoning was in use during the captivity of the Jews for Daniel says, "Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten days" (Dan. i. 12, 14).

Seven days, then, is the period by which the early astronomers reckoned lunar time; and a series of seven characters, or numbers, would be its expression. And ten days is the period for reckoning solar time, expressed by a series of ten characters, or numbers. And for adjusting solar and lunar time, so as to