er. What should the modern astronomer say when, remembering the
contemporary barbarism of Europe, he finds the Arab Abul Hassan speaking
of tubes, to the extremities of which ocular and object diopters,
perhaps sights, were attached, as used at Meragha? what when he reads of
the attempts of Abderrahman Sufi at improving the photometry of the
stars? Are the astronomical tables of Ebn Junis (A.D. 1008), called the
Hakemite tables, or the Ilkanic tables of Nasser Eddin Tasi, constructed
at the great observatory just mentioned, Meragha, near Tauris,
A.D. 1259, or the measurement of time by pendulum oscillations,
and the methods of correcting astronomical tables by systematic
observations--are such things worthless indications of the mental state?
The Arab has left his intellectual impress on Europe, as, before long,
Christendom will have to confess; he has indelibly written it on the
heavens, as any one may see who reads the names of the stars on a common
celestial globe.

[Sidenote: Improvements in the arts of life.] Our obligations to the
Spanish Moors in the arts of life are even more marked than in the
higher branches of science, perhaps only because our ancestors were
better prepared to take advantage of things connected with daily
affairs. They set an example of skilful agriculture, the practice of
which was regulated by a code of laws. Not only did they attend to the
cultivation of plants, introducing very many new ones, they likewise
paid great attention to the breeding of cattle, especially the sheep and
horse. To them we owe the introduction of the great products, rice,
sugar, cotton, and also, as we have previously observed, nearly all the
fine garden and orchard fruits, together with many less important
plants, as spinach and saffron. To them Spain owes the culture of silk;
they gave to Xeres and Malaga their celebrity for wine. They introduced
the Egyptian system of irrigation by flood-gates, wheels, and pumps.
They also promoted many important branches of industry; improved the
manufacture of textile fabrics, earthenware, iron, steel; the Toledo
sword-blades were everywhere prized for their temper. The Arabs, on
their expulsion from Spain, carried the manufacture of a kind of
leather, in which they were acknowledged to excel, to Morocco, from
which country the leather itself has now taken its name. They also
introduced inventions of a more ominous kind--gunpowder and artillery.
The cannon they used appeared to