[DAWSON] SOLAR AND LUNAR CYCLES IN BOOK OF DANIEL 37 



grades through the seasons. This calendar, which is used by the Turks 

 and other Mahommedans, is based upon a cycle of remarkable accuracy, 

 quite as correct as the basis of our own calendar. This is the more 

 noteworthy, because of its being much more difficult to determine lunar 

 data, than the length of the solar year. But in this case also, the 

 numbers in Daniel afford a cycle which is incomparably superior in 

 accuracy. 



The remaining calendar is the one with which we are familiar. Its 

 one object is to reconcile the solar year and the day; and the lunar 

 element is only retained for certain ecclesiastical festivals, in partial 

 imitation of the Je^dsh method. Its only advantage is to keep the 

 beginning of the year at a fixed point with reference to the seasons. 

 The so-called months are merely arbitrary divisions of the year into 

 twelve parts; and the distribution of the days among these months is 

 so irregular and so unmeaning that any schoolboy could improve upon it. 



Some explanation for such a calendar may be found in its coming 

 do\ATi to us from the Eoman times, when ideas of accuracy were largely 

 lost, through the ignoring of astronomy and other exact sciences which 

 were so highly considered by the older nations; the Persians, the Egyp- 

 tians, and notably the Chaldeans. It is so constantly assumed that 

 everything ancient is crude and inaccurate, that the high intelligence 

 of the earlier nations is too apt to be overlooked. The old Chaldean 

 method, for example, of fixing the dates of their kings by correlation 

 with eclipses of the sun, is incomparably superior as a scientific con- 

 ception, to any plan adopted by their successors; and their basis for 

 weights and measures — the relation of a cube of water to the unit of 

 length, — we do not find again until the metric system was devised. 

 In contrast with this advancement, the crude system of numerals used 

 by the Komans, which it was found impossible to use for the ^ost 

 ordinar}' problems in simple arithmetic, is an indication of their inferi- 

 ority in matters of calculation; however much they may have excelled 

 in other directions, for which mental capacit}^ was unnecessary. 



Data for the Sun and Moon, reduced to the Epoch 1900 A.D. — 

 The limit of accuracy with which the various determinations can be 

 relied upon, does not exceed 001 of a second for the year, or 0-001 

 of a second for the lunar month. This accuracy corresponds in deci- 

 mals to seven places for the value of the year expressed in days, and 

 «ight places for the month. It would be untrustworthy to exceed this 

 limit, as one-hundredth of a second is equal to 0.000 000 13 of a day 

 Also, when a cycle is designated " exact,'^ it means that it comes up 

 to these limits of accuracy. When longer periods are expressed in 

 ■days, the number of decimals given, corresponds with these same limits. 



