Chapter XVI: Part 16

The power actually at work at present in producing rain, and so, indirectly, in levelling the earth’s surface, is enormous. I have shown that the amount of heat required to evaporate a quantity of water which would cover an area of 100 square miles to a depth of one inch would be equal to the heat which would be produced by the combustion of half a million tons of coals, and that the amount of force of which this consumption of heat would be the equivalent corresponds to that which would be required to raise a weight of upwards of one thousand millions of tons to a height of one mile.[45] When we remember that the land surface of the earth amounts to about fifty millions of square miles, we perceive how enormous must be the force-equivalent of the annual rainfall of our earth. We are apt to overlook when contemplating the silent and seemingly quiet processes of nature—such as the formation of the rain-cloud or the precipitation of rain—the tremendous energy of the forces really causing these processes. “I have seen,” says Professor Tyndall, “the wild stone-avalanches of the Alps, which smoke and thunder down the declivities with a vehemence almost sufficient to stun the observer. I have also seen snow-flakes descending so softly as not to hurt the fragile spangles of which they were composed; yet to produce from aqueous vapour a quantity which a child could carry of that tender material demands an exertion of energy competent to gather up the shattered blocks of the largest stone-avalanche I have ever seen, and pitch them to twice the height from which they fell.”

_ANCIENT BABYLONIAN ASTROGONY._

It is singular to consider how short a time elapsed, after writings in the arrow-headed or cuneiform letters (the Keilschriften of the Germans) were discovered, before, first, the power of interpreting them was obtained, and, secondly, the range of the cuneiform literature (so to speak) was recognized. Not more than ninety years have passed since the first specimens of arrow-headed inscriptions reached Europe. They had been known for a considerable time before this. Indeed, it has been supposed that the Assyrian letters referred to by Herodotus, Thucydides, and Pliny, were in this character. Della Valle and Figueroa, early in the seventeenth century, described inscriptions in arrow-headed letters, and hazarded the idea that they are to be read from left to right. But no very satisfactory evidence was advanced to show whether the inscriptions were to be so read, or from right to left, or, as Chardin suggested, in vertical lines. The celebrated Olaus Gerhard Tychsen, of Rostock, and other German philologists, endeavoured to decipher the specimens which reached Europe towards the end of the last century; but their efforts, though ingenious and zealous, were not rewarded with success. In 1801 Dr. Hager advanced the suggestion that the combinations formed by the arrow-heads did not represent letters but words, if not entire sentences. Lichtenstein, on the other hand, maintained that the letters belonged to an old form of the Arabic or Coptic character; and he succeeded to his own satisfaction in finding various passages from the Koran in the cuneiform inscriptions. Dr. Grotefend was the first to achieve any real success in this line of research. It is said that he was led to take up the subject by a slight dispute with one of his friends, which led to a wager that he would decipher one of the cuneiform inscriptions. The results of his investigations were that cuneiform inscriptions are alphabetical, not hieroglyphical; that the language employed is the basis of most of the Eastern languages; and that it is written from right to left. Since his time, through the labours of Rich, Botta, Rawlinson, Hincks, De Saulcy, Layard, Sayce, George Smith, and others, the collection and interpretation of the arrow-headed inscriptions have been carried out with great success. We find reason to believe that, though the original literature of Babylon was lost, the tablet libraries of Assyria contained copies of most of the writings of the more ancient nation. Amongst these have been found the now celebrated descriptions of the Creation, the Fall of Man, the Deluge, the Tower of Babel, and other matters found in an abridged and expurgated form in the book of Genesis. It is to that portion of the Babylonian account which relates to the creation of the sun and moon and stars that I wish here to call attention. It is not only curious in itself, but throws light, in my opinion, on questions of considerable interest connected with the views of ancient Eastern nations respecting the heavenly bodies.

It may be well, before considering the passage in question, to consider briefly—though we may not be able definitely to determine—the real antiquity of the Babylonian account.

In Smith’s interesting work on the Chaldæan account of Genesis, the question whether the Babylonian account preceded the writing of the book of Genesis, or _vice versâ_, is not definitely dealt with. Probably this part of his subject was included among the “important comparisons and conclusions with respect to Genesis” which he preferred to avoid, as his “desire was first to obtain the recognition of the evidence without prejudice.” It might certainly have interfered to some degree with the unprejudiced recognition of the evidence of the tablets if it had been maintained by him, and still more if he had demonstrated, that the Babylonian is the earlier version. For the account in the book of Genesis, coming thus to be regarded as merely an expurgated version of a narrative originally containing much fabulous matter, and not a little that is monstrous and preposterous, would certainly not have been presented to us in quite that aspect in which it had long been regarded by theologians.

But although Mr. Smith states that he placed the various dates as low as he fairly could, considering the evidence,—nay, that he “aimed to do this rather than to establish any system of chronology,”—there can be no mistake about the relative antiquity which he in reality assigns to the Babylonian inscriptions. He states, indeed, that every copy of the Genesis legends belongs to the reign of Assurbanipal, who reigned over Assyria B.C. 670. But it is “acknowledged on all hands that the tablets are not the originals, but are only copies from earlier texts.” The Assyrians acknowledge themselves that this literature was borrowed from Babylonian sources, and of course it is to Babylonia we have to look to ascertain the approximate dates of the original documents. “The difficulty,” he proceeds, “is increased by the following considerations: it appears that at an early period in Babylonian history a great literary development took place, and numerous works were produced which embodied the prevailing myths, religion, and science of that day. Written, many of them, in a noble style of poetry on one side, or registering the highest efforts of their science on the other, these texts became the standards for Babylonian literature, and later generations were content to copy these writings instead of making new works for themselves. Clay, the material on which they were written, was everywhere abundant, copies were multiplied, and by the veneration in which they were held these texts fixed and stereotyped the style of Babylonian literature, and the language in which they were written remained the classical style in the country down to the Persian conquest. Thus it happens that texts of Rim-agu, Sargon, and Hammurabi, who were 1000 years before Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus, show the same language as the texts of these later kings, there being no sensible difference in style to match the long interval between them,”—precisely as a certain devotional style of writing of our own day closely resembles the style of the sixteenth century.

We cannot, then, from the style, determine the age of the original writings from which the Assyrian tablets were copied. But there are certain facts which enable us to form an opinion on this point. Babylonia was conquered about B.C. 1300, by Tugultininip, king of Assyria. For 250 years before that date a foreign race (called by Berosus, Arabs) had ruled in Babylonia. There is no evidence of any of the original Babylonian Genesis tablets being written after the date of Hammurabi, under whom it is supposed that this race obtained dominion in Babylonia. Many scholars, indeed, regard Hammurabi as much more ancient; but none set him later than 1550 B.C.

Now, before the time of Hammurabi several races of kings reigned, their reigns ranging over a period of 500 years. They were called chiefly Kings of Sumir and Akkad—that is, Kings of Upper and Lower Babylonia. It is believed that before this period,—ranging, say, from about 2000 B.C. to 1550 B.C. (at least not later, though possibly, and according to many scholars, probably, far earlier),—the two divisions of Babylonia were separate monarchies. Thus, evidence whether any literature was written before or after B.C. 2000, may be found in the presence or absence of mention, or traces, of this division of the Babylonian kingdom. Mr. Smith considers, for example, that two works,—the great Chaldæan work on astrology, and a legend which he calls “The Exploits of Lubara,”—certainly belong to the period preceding B.C. 2000. In the former work, the subject of which specially connects it, as will presently be seen, with the tablet relating to the creation of the heavenly bodies, Akkad is always referred to as a separate state.

Now Mr. Smith finds that the story of the Creation and Fall belongs to the upper or Akkad division of the country. The Izdubar legends, containing the story of the Flood, and what Mr. Smith regards as probably the history of Nimrod, seem to belong to Sumir, the southern division of Babylonia. He considers the Izdubar legends to have been written at least as early as B.C. 2000. The story of the Creation “may not have been committed to writing so early;” but it also is of great antiquity. And these legends “were traditions before they were committed to writing, and were common, in some form, to all the country.” Remembering Mr. Smith’s expressed intention of setting all dates as late as possible, his endeavour to do this rather than to establish any system of chronology, we cannot misunderstand the real drift of his arguments, or the real significance of his conclusion that the period when the Genesis tablets were originally written extended from B.C. 2000 to B.C. 1550, or roughly synchronized with the period from Abraham to Moses, according to the ordinary chronology of our Bibles. “During this period it appears that traditions of the creation of the universe, and human history down to the time of Nimrod, existed parallel to, and in some points identical with, those given in the book of Genesis.”

Thus viewing the matter, we recognize the interest of that passage in the Babylonian Genesis tablets which corresponds with the account in the book of Genesis respecting the creation of the heavenly bodies. We find in it the earliest existent record of the origin of astrological superstitions. It does not express merely the vague belief, which might be variously interpreted, that the sun and moon and stars were specially created (after light had been created, after the firmament had been formed separating the waters above from the waters below, and after the land had been separated from the water) to be for signs and for seasons for the inhabitants of the world—that is, of our earth. It definitely states that those other suns, the stars, were set into constellation figures for man’s benefit; the planets and the moon next formed for his use; and the sun set thereafter in the heavens as the chief among the celestial bodies.

It runs thus, so far as the fragments have yet been gathered together:—

FIFTH TABLET OF CREATION LEGEND.

1. It was delightful all that was fixed by the great gods.

2. Stars, their appearance [in figures] of animals he arranged,

3. To fix the year through the observation of their
constellations,

4. Twelve months (or signs) of stars in three rows he arranged,

5. From the day when the year commences unto the close.

6. He marked the positions of the wandering stars (planets) to
shine in their courses,

7. That they may not do injury, and may not trouble any one.

8. The positions of the gods Bel and Hea he fixed with him.

9. And he opened the great gates in the darkness shrouded,

10. The fastenings were strong on the left and right.

11. In its mass (_i.e._ the lower chaos) he made a boiling.

12. The god Uru (the moon) he caused to rise out, the night he
over shadowed,

13. To fix it also for the light of the night until the shining
of the day,

14. That the month might not be broken, and in its amount be
regular.

15. At the beginning of the month, at the rising of the night,

16. His horns are breaking through to shine on the heaven.

17. On the seventh day to a circle he begins to swell,

18. And stretches towards the dawn further.

19. When the god Shamas (the sun) in the horizon of heaven, in
the east,

20. . . . formed beautifully and . . .

21. . . . . . . to the orbit Shamas was perfected

22. . . . . . . . . . the dawn Shamas should change

23. . . . . . . . . . . . . going on its path

24. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . giving judgment

25. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . to tame

26. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a second time

27. . . .

Of this tablet Smith remarks that it is a typical specimen of the style of the series, and shows a marked stage in the Creation, the appointment of the heavenly orbs running parallel to the biblical account of the fourth day of Creation. It is important to notice its significance in this respect. We can understand now the meaning underlying the words, “God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens, to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years.” The order, indeed, in which the bodies are formed according to the biblical account is inverted. The greater light—the sun—is made first, to rule the day: then the lesser light—the moon—to rule the night. These are the heavenly bodies which in this description rule the day of 24 hours. The sun may be regarded also as ruling (according to the ancient view, as according to nature) the seasons and the year. The stars remain as set in the heaven for signs. “He made the stars also.” “And God set them”—that is, the sun, moon, and stars—“in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night,” and so forth.

No one can doubt, I conceive, that the biblical account is superior to the other, both in a scientific and in a literary sense. It states much less as actually known, and what it does state accords better with the facts known in the writer’s day. Then, the Babylonian narrative, though impressive in certain passages, is overloaded with detail. In both accounts we find the heavenly bodies set in the firmament by a special creative act, and specially designed for the benefit of man. And in passing I would observe that the discovery of these Babylonian inscriptions, however they may be interpreted, and whether they be regarded as somewhat earlier or somewhat later than the Bible narrative, appears to dispose finally of the fantastic interpretation assigned by Hugh Miller and others to the biblical cosmogony, as corresponding to a series of visions in which the varying aspects of the world were presented. It has long seemed to me an utterly untenable proposition that a narrative seemingly intended to describe definitely a certain series of events should, after being for ages so interpreted, require now for its correct interpretation to be regarded as an account of a series of visions. If the explanation were reconcilable in any way with the words of Genesis, there yet seems something of profanity in imagining that men’s minds had thus been played with by a narrative purporting to be of one sort yet in reality of quite a different character. But whatever possibility there may be (and it can be but the barest possibility) that the Genesis narrative admits of the vision interpretation, no one can reasonably attempt to extend that interpretation to the Babylonian account. So that either a narrative from which the Genesis account was presumably derived was certainly intended to describe a series of events, or else a narrative very nearly as early as the Genesis account, and presumably derived from it at a time when its true meaning must have been known, presents the sun, moon, and stars as objects expressly created and set in the sky after the earth had been formed, and for the special benefit of man as yet uncreated.

I am not concerned, however, either to dwell upon this point, or to insist on any of its consequences. Let us return to the consideration of the Babylonian narrative as it stands.

We find twelve constellations or signs of the zodiac are mentioned as set to fix the year. I am inclined to consider that the preceding words, “stars, their appearance in figures of animals he arranged,” relate specially to the stars of the zodiac. The inventor of this astrogony probably regarded the stars as originally scattered in an irregular manner over the heavens,—rather as chaotic material from which constellations might be formed, than as objects separately and expressly created. Then they were taken and formed into figures of animals, set in such a way as to fix the year through the observation of these constellations. It is hardly necessary, perhaps, to remind the reader that the word zodiac is derived from a Greek word signifying an animal, the original name of the zone being the zodiacal way, or the pathway of the animals. Our older navigators called it the Bestiary.[46] “Twelve months or signs in three rows.” Smith takes the three rows to mean (i.) the zodiacal signs, (ii.) the constellations north of the zodiac, and (iii.) the constellations south of the zodiac. But this does not agree with the words “twelve signs in three rows.” Possibly the reference is to three circles, two bounding the zodiac on the north and south respectively, the third central, the ecliptic, or track of the sun; or the two tropics and the equator may have been signified. Instead of “twelve signs in three rows,” we should, probably, read “twelve signs along a triple band.” The description was written long after astronomical temples were first erected, and as the designer of a zodiacal dome like that (far more recently) erected at Denderah would set the twelve zodiacal signs along a band formed by three parallel circles, marking its central line and its northern and southern limits, so we can understand the writer of the tablet presenting the celestial architect as working in the same lines, on a grander scale; setting the twelve zodiacal signs on the corresponding triple band in the heavens themselves.

The next point to be noticed in the Babylonian astrology is the reference to “wandering stars.” Mr. Smith remarks that the word _nibir_, thus translated, “is not the usual word for planet, and there is a star called _Nibir_ near the place where the sun crossed the boundary between the old and new years, and this star was one of twelve supposed to be favourable to Babylonia.” “It is evident,” he proceeds, “from the opening of the inscription on the first tablet of the Chaldæan astrology and astronomy, that the functions of the stars were, according to the Babylonians, to act not only as regulators of the seasons and the year, but also to be used as signs, as in Genesis i. 14; for in those ages it was generally believed that the heavenly bodies gave, by their appearance and positions, signs of events which were coming on the earth.” The two verses relating to Nibir seem to correspond to no other celestial bodies but planets (unless, perhaps, to comets). If we regard Nibir as signifying any fixed star, we can find no significance in the marking of the course of the star Nibir, that it may do no injury and may not trouble any one. Moreover, as the fixed stars, the sun, and the moon, are separately described, it seems unlikely that the planets would be left unnoticed. In the biblical narrative the reference to the celestial bodies is so short that we can understand the planets being included in the words, “He made the stars also.” But in an account so full of detail as that presented in the Babylonian tablet, the omission of the planets would be very remarkable. It is also worthy of notice that in Polyhistor’s Babylonian traditions, recorded by Berosus, we read that “Belus formed the stars, the sun, the moon, and the five planets.”

In the tablet narrative the creator of the heavenly bodies is supposed to be Anu, god of the heavens. This is inferred by Mr. Smith from the fact “that the God who created the stars, fixed places or habitations for Bel and Hea with himself in the heavens.” For according to the Babylonian theogony, the three gods Anu, Bel, and Hea share between them the divisions of the face of the sky.

The account of the creation of the moon is perhaps the most interesting part of the narrative. We see that, according to the Babylonian philosophy, the earth is regarded as formed from the waters and resting after its creation above a vast abyss of chaotic water. We find traces of this old hypothesis in several biblical passages, as, for instance, in the words of the Third Commandment, “the heaven above, the earth beneath, and the waters under the earth;” and again in Proverbs xxx. 4, “Who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth?” “The great gates in the darkness shrouded, the fastenings strong on the left and right,” in the Babylonian account, refer to the enclosure of the great infernal lake, so that the waters under the earth might not overwhelm the world. It is from out the dark ocean beneath the earth that the god Anu calls the moon into being. He opens the mighty gates shrouded in the nether darkness, and creates a vast whirlpool in the gloomy ocean; then “at his bidding, from the turmoil arose the moon like a giant bubble, and passing through the open gates mounted on its destined way across the vaults of heaven.” It is strange to reflect that in quite recent times, at least 4000 years after the Babylonian tablet was written, and who shall tell how many years after the tradition was first invented?—a theory of the moon’s origin not unlike the Babylonian hypothesis has been advanced, despite overwhelming dynamical objections; and a modern paradoxist has even pointed to the spot beneath the ocean where a sudden increase of depth indicates that matter was suddenly extruded long ago, and driven forcibly away from the earth to the orbit along which that expelled mass—our moon—is now travelling.

It would have been interesting to have known how the Babylonian tablet described the creation of Shamas, the sun; though, so far as can be judged from the fragments above quoted, there was not the same fulness of detail in this part of the description as in that relating to the moon. Mr. Smith infers that the Babylonians considered the moon the more important body, unlike the writer or compiler of the book of Genesis, who describes the sun as the greater light. It does not seem to follow very clearly, however, from the tablet record, that the sun was considered inferior to the moon in importance, and certainly we cannot imagine that the Babylonians considered the moon a greater light. The creation of the stars precedes that of the moon, though manifestly the moon was judged to be more important than the stars. Not improbably, therefore, the sun, though following the moon in order of creation, was regarded as the more important orb of the two. In fact, in the Babylonian as in the (so-called) Mosaic legend of Creation, the more important members of a series of created bodies are, in some cases, created last—man last of all orders of animated beings, for instance.

If we turn now from the consideration of the Babylonian tradition of the creation of the heavenly bodies to note how the biblical account differs from it, not only or chiefly in details, but in general character, we seem to recognize in the latter a determination to detach from the celestial orbs the individuality, so to speak, which the older tradition had given to them. The account in Genesis is not only simpler, and, in a literary sense, more effective, but it is in another sense purified. The celestial bodies do not appear in it as celestial beings. The Babylonian legend is followed only so far as it can be followed consistently with the avoidance of all that might tempt to the worship of the sun, moon, and stars. The writer of the book of Genesis, whether Moses or not, seems certainly to have shared the views of Moses as to the Sabæanism of the nation from which the children of Abraham had separated. Moses warned the Israelite,—“Take good heed unto thyself, lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven; and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.” So the writer of Genesis is careful to remove from the tradition which he follows all that might suggest the individual power and influence of the heavenly bodies. The stars are to be for signs, but we read nothing of the power of the wandering stars “to do injury or trouble any one.” (That is, not in the book of Genesis. In the song of Deborah we find, though perhaps only in a poetic fashion, the old influences assigned to the planets, when the singer says that the “stars in their courses fought against Sisera.” Deborah, however, was a woman, and women have always been loth and late to give up ancient superstitions.) Again, the sun and the moon in Genesis are the greater and the lesser lights, not, as in the Babylonian narrative, the god Shamas and the god Uru.

We may find a parallel to this treatment of the Babylonian myth in the treatment by Moses of the observance of the Sabbath, a day of rest which the Babylonian tablets show to have had, as for other reasons had been before suspected, an astrological significance. The Jewish lawgiver does not do away with the observance; in fact, he was probably powerless to do away with it. At any rate, he suffers the observance to remain, precisely as the writer of the book of Genesis retains the Babylonian tradition of the creation of the celestial bodies. But he is careful to expurgate the Chaldæan observance, just as the writer of Genesis is careful to expurgate the Babylonian tradition. The week as a period is no longer associated with astrological superstitions, nor the Sabbath rest enjoined as a fetish. Both ideas are directly associated with the monotheistic principle which primarily led to the separation of the family of Abraham from the rest of the Chaldæan race. In Babylonia, the method of associating the names of the sun, moon, and stars with the days, doubtless had its origin. Saturn was the Sabbath star, as it is still called (Sabbatai) in the Talmud. But, as Professor Tischendorf told Humboldt, in answer to a question specially addressed to him on the subject, “there is an entire absence in both the Old and New Testaments, of any traces of names of week-days taken from the planets.” The lunar festivals, again, though unquestionably Sabaistic in their origin, were apparently too thoroughly established to be discarded by Moses; nay, he was even obliged to permit the continuance of many observances which suspiciously resembled the old offerings of sacrifice to the moon as a deity. He had also to continue the sacrifice of the passover, the origin of which was unmistakably astronomical,—corresponding in time to the sun’s passage across the equator, or rather to the first lunar month following and including that event. But he carefully dissociates both the lunar and the lunisolar sacrifices from their primary Sabaistic significance. In fact, the history of early Hebrew legislation, so far as it related to religion, is the history of a struggle on the part of the lawgivers and the leaders of opinion against the tendency of the people to revert to the idolatrous worship of their ancestors and of races closely akin to them—especially against the tendency to the worship of the sun and moon and all the host of heaven.

In the very fact, however, that this contest was maintained, while yet the Hebrew cosmogony, and in particular the Hebrew astrogony, contains indubitable evidence of its origin in the poetical myths of older Babylonia, we find one of the strongest proofs of the influence which the literature of Babylon, when at the fulness of its development, exerted upon surrounding nations. This influence is not more clearly shown even by the fact that nearly 2000 years after the decay of Babylonian literature, science, and art, a nation like the Assyrians, engaged in establishing empire rather than in literary and scientific pursuits, should have been at the pains to obtain copies of many thousands of the tablet records which formed the libraries of older Babylonia. In both circumstances we find good reason for hoping that careful search among Assyrian and Babylonian ruins may not only be rewarded by the discovery of many other portions of the later Assyrian library (which was also in some sense a museum), but that other and earlier copies of the original Babylonian records may be obtained. For it seems unlikely that works so valuable as to be thought worth recopying after 1500 or 2000 years, in Assyria, had not been more than once copied during the interval in Babylonia. “Search in Babylonia,” says Mr. Smith, “would no doubt yield earlier copies of all these works, but that search has not yet been instituted, and for the present we have to be contented with our Assyrian copies. Looking, however, at the world-wide interest of the subjects, and at the important evidence which perfect copies of these works would undoubtedly give, there can be no doubt,” Mr. Smith adds, “that the subject of further search and discovery will not slumber, and that all as yet known will one day be superseded by newer texts and fuller and more perfect light.”

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FOOTNOTES

[1] More strictly, it plays the same part as a glass screen before a glowing fire. When the heat of the fire falls on such a screen (through which light passes readily enough), it is received by the glass, warming the glass up to a certain point, and the warmed glass emits in all directions the heat so received; thus scattering over a large space the rays which, but for the glass, would have fallen directly upon the objects which the screen is intended to protect.

[2] The case here imagined is not entirely hypothetical. We examine Mercury and Venus very nearly under the conditions here imagined; for we can obtain only spectroscopic evidence respecting the existence of water on either planet. In the case of Mars we have telescopic evidence, and no one now doubts that the greenish parts of the planet are seas and oceans. But Venus and Mercury are never seen under conditions enabling the observer to determine the colour of various parts of their discs.

I may add that a mistake, somewhat analogous to that which I have described in the cases of an imagined observer of our earth, has been made by some spectroscopists in the case of the planets Jupiter and Saturn. In considering the spectroscopic evidence respecting the condition of these planets’ atmospheres, they have overlooked the circumstance that we can judge only of the condition of the outermost and coolest layers, for the lower layers are concealed from view by the enormous cloud masses, floating, as the telescope shows, in the atmospheric envelopes of the giant planets. Thus the German spectroscopist Vögel argues that because in the spectrum of Jupiter dark lines are seen which are known to belong to the absorption-spectrum of aqueous vapour, the planet’s surface cannot be intensely hot. But Jupiter’s absorption-spectrum belongs to layers of his atmosphere lying far above his surface. We can no more infer the actual temperature of Jupiter’s surface from the temperature of the layers which produce his absorption-spectrum, than a visitor who should view our earth from outer space, observing the low temperature of the air ten or twelve miles above the sea-level, could infer thence the actual temperature of the earth’s surface.

[3] In “Other Worlds than Ours,” I wrote as follows:—“The lines of hydrogen, which are so well marked in the solar spectrum, are not seen in the spectrum of Betelgeux. We are not to conclude from this that hydrogen does not exist in the composition of the star. We know that certain parts of the solar disc, when examined with the spectroscope, do not at all times exhibit the hydrogen lines, or may even present them as bright instead of dark lines. It may well be that in Betelgeux hydrogen exists under such conditions that the amount of light it sends forth is nearly equivalent to the amount it absorbs, in which case its characteristic lines would not be easily discernible. In fact, it is important to notice generally, that while there can be no mistaking the positive evidence afforded by the spectroscope as to the existence of any element in sun or star, the negative evidence supplied by the absence of particular lines is not to be certainly relied upon.”

[4] Dr. Draper remarks here in passing, “I do not think that, in comparisons of the spectra of the elements and sun, enough stress has been laid on the general appearance of lines apart from their mere position; in photographic representations this point is very prominent.”

[5] The word “ignited” may mislead, and indeed is not correctly used here. The oxygen in the solar atmosphere, like the hydrogen, is simply glowing with intensity of heat. No process of combustion is taking place. Ignition, strictly speaking, means the initiation of the process of combustion, and a substance can only be said to be ignited when it has been set burning. The word _glowing_ is preferable; or if reference is made to heat and light combined, then “glowing with intensity of heat” seems the description most likely to be correctly understood.

[6] It would be an interesting experiment, which I would specially recommend to those who, like Dr. Draper, possess instrumental means specially adapted to the inquiry, to ascertain what variations, if any, occur in the solar spectrum when (i.) the central part of the disc alone, and (ii.) the outer part alone, is allowed to transmit light to the spectroscope. The inquiry seems specially suited to the methods of spectral photography pursued by Dr. Draper, and by Dr. Huggins, in this country. Still, I believe interesting results can be obtained even without these special appliances; and I hope before long to employ my own telescope in this department of research.

[7] In 1860, a year of maximum sun-spot frequency, Cambridge won the University boat-race; the year 1865, of minimum sun-spot frequency, marked the middle of a long array of Oxford victories; 1872, the next maximum, marked the middle of a Cambridge series of victories. May we not anticipate that in 1878, the year of minimum spot frequency, Oxford will win? [This prediction made in autumn, 1877, was fulfilled.] I doubt not similar evidence might be obtained about cricket.

[8] It must be understood that this remark relates only to the theory that by close scrutiny of the sun a power of predicting weather peculiarities can be obtained, not to the theory that there may be a cyclic association between sun-spots and the weather. If this association exists, yet no scrutiny of the sun can tell us more than we already know, and it will scarcely be pretended that new solar observatories could give us any better general idea of the progress of the great sun-spot period than we obtain from observatories already in existence, or, indeed, might obtain from the observations of a single amateur telescopist.

I think it quite possible that, from the systematic study of terrestrial relations, the existence of a cyclic association between the great spot period and terrestrial phenomena may be demonstrated, instead of being merely surmised, as at present. By the way, it may be worth noting that a prediction relative to the coming winter [that of 1877–78] has been made on the faith of such association by Professor Piazzi Smyth. It runs as follows:—

“Having recently computed the remaining observations of our earth-thermometers here, and prepared a new projection of all the observations from their beginning in 1837 to their calamitous close last year [1876]—results generally confirmatory of those arrived at in 1870 have been obtained, but with more pointed and immediate bearing on the weather now before us.

“The chief features undoubtedly deducible for the past thirty-nine years, after eliminating the more seasonal effects of ordinary summer and winter, are:—

“1. Between 1837 and 1876 three great heat-waves, from without, struck this part of the earth, viz., the first in 1846·5, the second in 1858·0, and the third in 1868·7. And unless some very complete alteration in the weather is to take place, the next such visitation may be looked for in 1879·5, within limits of half a year each way.

“2. The next feature in magnitude and certainty is that the periods of minimum temperature, or cold, are not either in, or anywhere near, the middle time between the crests of those three chronologically identified heat-waves, but are comparatively close up to them _on either side_, at a distance of about a year and a half, so that the next such cold-wave is due at the end of the present year [1877].

“This is, perhaps, not an agreeable prospect, especially if political agitators are at this time moving amongst the colliers, striving to persuade them to decrease the out-put of coal at every pit’s mouth. Being, therefore, quite willing, for the general good, to suppose myself mistaken, I beg to send you a first impression of plate 17 of the forthcoming volume of observations of this Royal Observatory, and shall be very happy if you can bring out from the measures recorded there any more comfortable view for the public at large.

“PIAZZI SMYTH,
“Astronomer-Royal for Scotland.”

If this prediction shall be confirmed [this was written in autumn, 1877], it will afford an argument in favour of the existence of the cyclic relation suggested, but no argument for the endowment of solar research. Professor Smyth’s observations were not solar but terrestrial.

[The prediction was not confirmed, the winter of 1877–78 being, on the contrary, exceptionally mild.]

[9] The reader unfamiliar with the principles of the telescope may require to be told that in the ordinary telescope each part of the object-glass forms a complete image of the object examined. If, when using an opera-glass (one barrel), a portion of the large glass be covered, a portion of what had before been visible is concealed. But this is not the case with a telescope of the ordinary construction. All that happens when a portion of the object-glass is covered is that the object appears in some degree less fully illuminated.

[10] It may be briefly sketched, perhaps, in a note. The force necessary to draw the earth inwards in such sort as to make her follow her actual course is proportional to (i) the square of her velocity directly, and (ii) her distance from the sun inversely. If we increase our estimate of the earth’s distance from the sun, we, in the same degree, increase our estimate of her orbital velocity. The square of this velocity then increases as the square of the estimated distance; and therefore, the estimated force sunwards is increased as the square of the distance on account of (i), and diminished as the distance on account of (ii), and is, therefore, on the whole, increased as the distance. That is, we now regard the sun’s action as greater at this greater distance, and in the same degree that the distance is greater; whereas, if it had been what we before supposed it, it would be less at the greater distance as the square of the distance (attraction varying inversely as the square of the distance). Being greater as the distance, instead of less as the square of the distance, it follows that our estimate of the sun’s absolute force is now greater as the cube of the distance. Similarly, if we had diminished our estimate of the sun’s distance, we should have diminished our estimate of his absolute power (or mass) as the cube of the distance. But our estimate of the sun’s volume is also proportional to the cube of his estimated distance. Hence our estimate of his mass varies as our estimate of his volume; or, our estimate of his mean density is constant.

[11] Only very recently an asteroid, Hilda (153rd in order of detection), has been discovered which travels very much nearer to the path of Jupiter than to that of Mars—a solitary instance in that respect. Its distance (the earth’s distance being represented by unity), is 3·95, Jupiter’s being 5·20, and Mars’s 1·52; its period falls short of 8 years by only two months, the average period of the asteroidal family being only about 4½ years. Five others, Cybele, Freia, Sylvia, Camilla, and Hermione, travel rather nearer to Jupiter than to Mars; but the remaining 166 travel nearer to Mars, and most of them much nearer.

[12] Even this statement is not mathematically exact. If the rails are straight and parallel, the ratio of approach and recession of an engine on one line, towards or from an engine on the other, is never quite equal to the engines’ velocities added together; but the difference amounts practically to nothing, except when the engines are near each other.

[13] I have omitted all reference to details; but in reality the double battery was automatic, the motion of the observing telescope, as different colours of the spectrum were brought into view, setting all the prisms of the double battery into that precise position which causes them to show best each particular part of the spectrum thus brought into view. It is rather singular that the first view I ever had of the solar prominences, was obtained (at Dr. Huggins’s observatory) with this instrument of my own invention, which also was the first powerful spectroscope I had ever used or even seen.

[14] It varies more in some months than in others, as the moon’s orbit changes in shape under the various perturbing influences to which she is subject.

[15] It may seem strange to say that one hundred and twenty years after the passage of a comet which last passed in 1862, and was then first discovered, August meteors have been seen. But in reality, as we know the period of that comet to be about one hundred and thirty years, we know that the displays of the years 1840, 1841, etc., to 1850, must have followed the preceding passage by about that interval of time.

[16] The D line, properly speaking, as originally named by Fraunhofer, belongs to sodium. The line spoken of above as the sierra D line is one close by the sodium line, and mistaken for it when first seen in the spectrum of the coloured prominences as a bright line. It does not appear as a dark line in the solar spectrum.

[17] Since this was written, I have learned that Mr. Backhouse, of Sunderland, announced similar results to those obtained at Dunecht, as seen a fortnight or so earlier.

[18] Here no account is taken of the motions of the stars within the system; such motions must ordinarily be minute compared with the common motion of the system.

[19] Eight pictures of nebulæ were exhibited in illustration of this peculiarity.

[20] Sir John Herschel long since pointed to the variation of our sun as a possible cause of such changes of terrestrial climate.

[21] During these journeys the Atlantic was sounded, and Scoresby’s estimate of the enormous depth of the Atlantic to the north-west of Spitzbergen was fully confirmed, the line indicating a depth of more than two miles. It was found also that Spitzbergen is connected with Norway by a submarine bank.

[22] It is far from improbable that a change has taken place in the climate of the part of the Arctic regions traversed by Koldewey; for the Dutch seem readily to have found their way much further north two centuries ago. Indeed, among Captain Koldewey’s results is one which seems to indicate the occurrence of such a change. The country he explored was found to have been inhabited. “Numerous huts of Esquimaux were seen, and various instruments and utensils of primitive form; but for some reason or other the region seems to have been finally deserted. The Polar bear reigns supreme on the glaciers, as the walrus does among the icebergs.” Not improbably the former inhabitants were forced to leave this region by the gradually increasing cold.

[23] Dr. Emile Bessels was tried at New York in 1872, on the charge of having poisoned Captain Hall, but was acquitted.

[24] The phenomena here described are well worth observing on their own account, as affording a very instructive and at the same time very beautiful illustration of wave motions. They can be well seen at many of our watering-places. The same laws of wave motion can be readily illustrated also by throwing two stones into a large smooth pool, at points a few yards apart. The crossing of the two sets of circular waves produces a wave-net, the meshes of which vary in shape according to their position.

[25] It is a pity that men of science so often forget, when addressing those who are not men of science, or who study other departments than theirs, that technical terms are out of place. Most people, I take it are more familiar, on the whole, with eyelids than with _palpebræ_.

[26] This nautical expression is new to me. Top-gallants—fore, main, and mizen—I know, and forecastle I know, but the top-gallant forecastle I do not know.

[27] The instrument was lent to Mr. Huggins by Mr. W. Spottiswoode. It has been recently employed successfully at Greenwich.

[28] Thus in _Christie Johnstone_, written in 1853, when Flucker Johnstone tells Christie the story of the widow’s sorrows, giving it word for word, and even throwing in what dramatists call “the business,” he says, “‘Here ye’ll play your hand like a geraffe.’ ‘Geraffe?’ she says; ‘that’s a beast, I’m thinking.’ ‘Na; it’s the thing on the hill that makes signals.’ ‘Telegraph, ye fulish goloshen!’ ‘Oo, ay, telegraph! geraffe’s sunnest said for a’.’” “Playing the hand like a telegraph” would now be as unmeaning as Flucker Johnstone’s original description.

[29] Not “to represent the gutta-percha,” as stated in the _Times_ account of Mr. Muirhead’s invention. The gutta-percha corresponds to the insulating material of the artificial circuit; viz., the prepared paper through which the current along the tinfoil strips acts inductively on the coating of tinfoil.

[30] I must caution the reader against Fig. 348 in Guillemin’s _Application of the Physical Forces_, in which the part _c d_ of the wire is not shown. The two coils are in reality part of a single coil, divided into two to permit of the bar being bent; and to remove the part _c d_ is to divide the wire, and, of course, break the current. It will be seen that _c d_ passes from the remote side of coil _b c_, Fig. 6, to the near side of coil _d e_. If it were taken round the remote side of the latter coil, the current along this would neutralize the effect of the current along the other.

[31] The paper is soaked in dilute ferrocyanide of potassium, and the passage of the current forms a Prussian blue.

[32] Sir W. Thomson states, in his altogether excellent article on the electric telegraph, in Nichol’s _Cyclopædia_, that the invention of this process is due to Mr. Bakewell.

[33] It is to be noticed, however, that the recording pointer must always mark its lines in the same direction, so that, unless a message is being transmitted at the same time that one is being received (in which case the oscillations both ways are utilized), the instrument works only during one-half of each complete double oscillation.

[34] It seems to me a pity that in the English edition of this work the usual measures have not been substituted throughout. The book is not intended or indeed suitable for scientific readers, who alone are accustomed to the metric system. Other readers do not care to have a little sum in reduction to go through at each numerical statement.

[35] Hanno’s _Periplus_—the voyage of Hanno, chief of the Carthaginians, round the parts of Libya, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, the narrative of which he posted up in the Temple of Kronos.

[36] I may mention one which occurred within my own experience. A mastiff of mine, some years ago, was eating from a plate full of broken meat. It was his custom to bury the large pieces when there was more than he could get through. While he was burying a large piece, a cat ran off with a small fragment. The moment he returned to the plate he missed this, and, seeing no one else near the plate, he, in his own way, accused a little daughter of mine (some two or three years old) of the theft. Looking fiercely at her, he growled his suspicions, and would not suffer her to escape from the corner where his plate stood until I dragged him away by his chain. Nor did he for some time forget the wrong which he supposed she had done him, but always growled when she came near his house.

[37] It may be suggested, in passing, that the association which has been commonly noticed between prominent eyeballs and command of language (phrenologists place the organ of language, in their unscientific phraseology, behind the eyeballs) may be related in some degree to the circumstance that in gradually emerging from the condition of an arboreal creature the anthropoid ape would not only cease to derive advantage from sunken eyes, but would be benefited by the possession of more prominent eyeballs. The increasing prominence of the eyeballs would thus be a change directly associated with the gradual advance of the animal to a condition in which, associating into larger and larger companies and becoming more and more dependent on mutual assistance and discipline, they would require the use of a gradually extending series of vocal signs to indicate their wants and wishes to each other.

[38] The word hypothesis is too often used as though it were synonymous with theory, so that Newton’s famous saying, “Hypotheses non fingo” has come to be regarded by many as though it expressed an objection on Newton’s part against the formation of theories. This would have been strange indeed in the author of the noblest theory yet propounded by man in matters scientific. Newton indicates his meaning plainly enough, in the very paragraph in which the above expression occurs, defining an hypothesis as an opinion not based on phenomena.

[39] I find it somewhat difficult to understand clearly Mr. Mivart’s own position with reference to the general theory of evolution. He certainly is an evolutionist, and as certainly he considers natural selection combined with the tendency to variation (as ordinarily understood) insufficient to account for the existence of the various forms of animal and vegetable existence. He supplies the missing factor in “an innate law imposed on nature, by which new and definite species, under definite conditions, emerged from a latent and potential being into actual and manifest existence;” and, so far as can be judged, he considers that the origin of man himself is an instance of the operation of this law.

[40] The Middle Tertiary period—the Tertiary, which includes the Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene periods, being the latest of the three great periods recognized by geologists as preceding the present era, which includes the entire history of man as at present known geologically.

[41] Closely following in this respect his illustrious namesake Roger, who writes, in the sixth chapter of his _Opus Majus_, “_Sine experientia nihil sufficienter sciri potest._”