re names which were borrowed,
on the one hand, from events in civil life, such as "Simanu," from the
making of brick, and "Addaru," from the sowing of seed, and, on the
other, from mythological occurrences whose origin is still obscure, such
as "Nisanu," from the altar of Ea, and "Elul," from a message of Ishtar.
The adjustment of this year to astronomical demands was roughly carried
out by the addition of a month every six years, which was called a
second Adar, Blul, or Nisan, according to the place in which it was
intercalated.

* Tannery is of opinion that the Chaldaeans must have
predicted eclipses of the sun by means of the period of two
hundred and twenty-three lunations, and shows by what a
simple means they could have arrived at it.

** An astronomer mentions, in the time of Assurbanipal, that
on the 28th, 29th, and 30th of the month he prepared for the
observation of an eclipse; but the sun continued brilliant,
and the eclipse did not take place.

The neglect of the hours and minutes in their calculation of the length
of the year became with them, as with the Egyptians, a source of serious
embarrassment, and we are still ignorant as to the means employed
to meet the difficulty. The months had relations to the signs of the
zodiac, and the days composing them were made up of twelve double hours
each. The Chaldaens had invented two instruments, both of them of a
simple character, to measure time--the clepsydra and the solar clock,
the latter of which in later times became the source of the Greek
"polos." The sun-dial served to determine a number of simple facts
which were indispensable in astronomical calculations, such as the
four cardinal points, the meridian of the place, the solstitial and
equinoctial epochs, and the elevation of the pole at the position of
observation. The construction of the sundial and clepsydra, if not of
the polos also, is doubtless to be referred back to a very ancient date,
but none of the texts already brought to light makes mention of the
employment of these instruments.*

* Herodotus (ii. 109) formally attributes the invention of
the sun-dial and polos to the Babylonians. The "polos" was a
solar clock. It consisted of a concave hemisphere with a
style rising from its centre: the shadow of the style
described every day an arc of a circle parallel to the
equator, and the daily parallels were divided into twelve