the battle of Arbela (331 B.C.), took possession of Babylon, Callisthenes found there on burned brick astronomical records reaching back as far as 2234 B.C. Porphyrius says that these were sent to Aristotle. Ptolemy, the Alexandrian astronomer, possessed a Babylonian record of eclipses going back to 747 B.C. Recently Epping and Strassmaier[4] threw considerable light on Babylonian chronology and astronomy by explaining two calendars of the years 123 B.C. and 111 B.C., taken from cuneiform tablets coming, presumably, from an old observatory. These scholars have succeeded in giving an account of the Babylonian calculation of the new and full moon, and have identified by calculations the Babylonian names of the planets, and of the twelve zodiacal signs and twenty-eight normal stars which correspond to some extent with the twenty-eight nakshatras of the Hindoos. We append part of an Assyrian astronomical report, as translated by Oppert:—
"To the King, my lord, thy faithful servant, Mar-Istar."
"…On the first day, as the new moon's day of the month Tham-muz declined, the moon was again visible over the planet Mercury, as I had already predicted to my master the King. I erred not."
THE EGYPTIANS.
Though there is great difference of opinion regarding the antiquity of Egyptian civilisation, yet all authorities agree in the statement that, however far back they go, they find no uncivilised state of society. "Menes, the first king, changes the course of the Nile, makes a great reservoir, and builds the temple of Phthah at Memphis." The Egyptians built the pyramids at a very early period. Surely a people engaging in
