mbers of Daniel some cycles of extreme
astronomical interest have been derived by De Cheseaux, a Swiss
astronomer of the eighteenth century, and by Dr. H. Grattan Guinness,
and Dr. W. Bell Dawson in our own times. Thus, the difference between
2,300 and 1,260 is 1,040, and 1,040 years give an extremely exact
correspondence between the solar year and the month, whilst the mean of
the two numbers gives us 1,780, and 1,780 lunar years is 1,727 solar
years with extreme precision. But since these are not given directly in
the Book of Daniel, and are only inferential from his numbers, there
seems no need to comment upon them here.

It is fair, however, to conclude that Daniel was aware of the Metonic
cycle. The 2300-year cycle gives evidence of a more accurate knowledge
of the respective lengths of month and year than is involved in the
cycle of 19 years. And the latter is a cycle which a Jew would be
naturally led to detect, as the number of intercalary months contained
in it is seven, the Hebrew sacred number.

The Book of Daniel, therefore, itself proves to us that king
Nebuchadnezzar was perfectly justified in the high estimate which he
formed of the attainments of the four Hebrew children. Certainly one of
them, Daniel, was a better instructed mathematician and astronomer than
any Chaldean who had ever been brought into his presence.

We have the right to make this assertion, for now we have an immense
number of Babylonian records at our command; and can form a fairly
accurate estimate as to the state there of astronomical and mathematical
science at different epochs. A kind of "quasi-patriotism" has induced
some Assyriologists to confuse in their accounts of Babylonian
attainments the work of times close to the Christian era with that of
many centuries, if not of several millenniums earlier; and the times of
Sargon of Agade, whose reputed date is 3800 B.C., have seemed to be
credited with the astronomical work done in Babylon in the first and
second centuries before our era. This is much as if we should credit
our predecessors who lived in this island at the time of Abraham with
the scientific attainments of the present day.

The earlier astronomical achievements at Babylon were not, in any real
sense, astronomical at all. They were simply the compilation of lists of
crude astrological omens, of the most foolish and unreasoning kind. Late
in Babylonian history there were observations of a high scientific
order; real