12 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 



Such a deduction was certain to excite 

 astonishment. It was contradicted first by 

 the learned historian of botany, Prof. E. H. 

 F. Meyer, of the University of Konigsberg. 1 

 Prof. Meyer refused to acknowledge the 

 remote antiquity of a composition so 

 scientifically arranged, so diffuse, and 

 bearing the marks of science rather in 

 its decay than in its early rise. Various 

 peculiarities appeared to him to add great 

 weight to this theory. For instance, one of 

 the works quoted in " The Agriculture" was 

 written in rhyme ; now rhyme is never 

 found among the Shemitic nations, till from 

 the end of the fifth to the sixth century 

 of our era; many names of plants in the 

 translation of Ibn Wahshiya are taken from 

 the Greek ; the whole theory of the book 

 bears a strong resemblance to that of the 

 Greek and Latin agriculturists; the astro- 

 nomy which it promulgates contains notions 

 which were not popular till the Eoman 



1 "Geschichte der Botanik," t. III. (Konigsberg, 1856), p. 43 

 and following. 



