June 1, 1888.] 



♦ KNO^ATLEDGE ♦ 



175 



suggested by a natural Mesopotamian flood of this kind, 

 relates to a Hood much more widespread and far more 

 terrible ia its eSbcts. We have here intermixed, after the 

 customary mythical fashion, the magnified and intensided 

 events of an ordinary flood, the diurnal progress of the sun- 

 god (and especially his joui-ney in a ship beueatli the 

 horizon) and the annual journey of the sun as god of the 

 year, during a time when all the heavenly powers combined 

 their influence in the watery constellations. 



So much premised, let ns trace the annual progress of the 

 constellations which, at the time of the Pyramid builders 

 and their Baliylonian fellow-workers in astronomy were 

 below the horizon of the star sphere — marked by the 

 equator — and let us see how far the constellations as 

 pictured corrft'^ponded with the . events recorded in the 

 narrative. It is to be observed that the mere agreement of 

 a few cases would count for little. The agreement of several, 

 in precise order, as well as in the characteristics of the con- 

 stellations, would be more significant. But if we shall find 

 the whole circuit of the star-sjihere corresponding with the 

 Babylonian narrative as presented in Genesis, and even the 

 dates and periods there mentioned adequately represented, 

 then, as it seems to me (regarding the matter as merely one 

 of probabilities), the evidence will be decisive. 



I picture to myself observers stationed in the grand 

 meridional gallery of the Pyramid of Cheops, or in some 

 similar observing passige in the Temple of the Planets at 

 Babylon, watching, night after night, throughout the year, 

 the constellations occupying the southern skies below the 

 celestial ecjuator — which at the Egyptian observatory ranged 

 sixty degrees above the southern horizon and .some two 

 degrees less above the Babylonian. Only it must be 

 remembered that the constellations they would see on the 

 midnight sky would be those whose influences would affect 

 their solar god, not at the season of observation, but iust 

 half a year before or after, when the sun would be travelling 

 through or past those constellations. 



Beginning, then, with the seventeenth day of the second 

 month, which all agi-ee would correspond with the end of 

 October, we find the part of the stellar heavens in conjunc- 

 tion with the sun to be the beginning of the watery constel- 

 lation C'apricornus, regarded by ancient astronomers as of 

 all the signs the one which most directly threatened flood. 

 Thence for the space of nearly five months' journey the sun 

 was in conjunction with none but watery constellations. 

 After the Seagoat came the Water-Bearer Aquarius, whose 

 jar and the streams flowing from it are pictured very strik- 

 ingly in the heavens, however imperfectly shown in the 

 modern much-i-educed constellation. Then follow Pisces, 

 the Sea-Monster Cetus, and the streams of Eridanus. (In 

 my opinion the water streams from the vessel borne aloft by 

 Aquarius were regarded as extending over C'apricornus on 

 the one side, and on the other over the Fishes, the Sea 

 Monster, and the great river Eridanus, the whole of this 

 large region of the heavens being most curiously traversed 

 by a network of interlacing star-streams.) For one hundred 

 and fifty days the sun was in conjunction with these watery 

 signs, viz , from the end of October till about the time of the 

 spring equinox, when also the terrestrial skies in Babylon 

 seemed to respond to the.se watery influences. Now it is 

 noteworthy that, although this watery region extended over 

 one hundred and fifty days' sun-journey, the special flood 

 signs extended only over forty days of the solar path. From 

 the beginning of Capricornus to the place where the main 

 stream from the water-can of Aquarius crosses the sun's 

 path — or from near Alpha of the Seagoat to near Phi of 

 the Water-Carrier, there are just forty days of solar travel. 

 This corresponds precisely with the record of the flood. 

 The rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights — and 



after the end of an hundred and fifty days (including the 

 forty) the waters decreased. 



At this stage we find, in the stellar story of the flood, 

 the Ark floating on the wide expanse of pictured sea. Above, 

 along the equator, lies (or rather lay, at the time to which 

 we are looking back) the fall length of the great Sea-Serpent ; 

 below that water horizon extended a broad tract of star- 

 less sky ; and below that again the starry splendour of the 

 great ship her.self. 



Counting now to the tenth month on the first day of the 

 month, ■' when the tops of the mountains beg.an to be seen, we 

 reach the place where Cor Hydr», the Sea-serpent's Heart, 

 stood on the equator, the horizon of the celestLal sea. Then 

 followed forty days more, at the end of which Noah opened 

 the window of the ark which he had made, and sent forth 

 a raven." Now just at the corresponding pomt we find 

 the ancient constellation of the Rxven, standing on the Sea- 

 serpent, or just above the equator, as if finding no place on 

 the land. If we were to trust the modern pictures of the 

 Haven, this might seem of little moment. For with charac- 

 teristic perver.sity, the modern map-makers have turned this 

 constellation upside down, and the case becomes one of 

 those referred to l)y Mr. Lang, when the liveliest imagina- 

 tion can trace no resemblance between a star gi-oup and the 

 object pictured. But the old globes and charts set this 

 light. The raven is in reality a very characteristic bird. 

 His high-shouldered attitude when at rest, and a certain 

 angularity of wing then shown, are features which strike 

 the observer at once. Now the constellation Corvus, repre- 

 senting the chief of the Corvidce, the Raven, is also striking. 

 It is a small group, but well marked, and surrounded by 

 conxparatively vacant skies. So soon as we picture a Eaven 

 standing upright on the Sea-serpent's back, not as in modern 

 pictures in the attitude of a fowl picking up seed, we recog- 

 nise the outline of a raven in the star-group, as distinctly as 

 we see a Dolphin in the group so called, a crown in Corona 

 Borealis, and other objects in similar small but well-defined 

 groups. Thus the Haven of the flood story is well pictured 

 in the heavens, and occupies precisely the position corre- 

 sponding to the dates in the Babylonian record, as preserved 

 for us in (ienesis. 



Then follow three weeks, or twenty-one days, correspond- 

 ing to the intervals at which the dove was sent forth. I 

 might dwell on this reference to the week, the first of the 

 kind in the Bible pages, as of itself sufficing to indicate the 

 astronomical, and especially Babylonian origin of the story. 

 But I pass on to consider the I'est of the record. I cannot 

 find three doves in the stellar picture, nor could they be 

 reasonably looked for. It is curious, however, that there 

 are three characteristic undulations of the tail of Hydra, 

 i.f. stars which recpiire to bo connected by an undulating 

 line to keep up the serpentine idea — ranging over precisely 

 three weeks of the diurnal motion of the star-sphere. The 

 crests of the undulations are marked (1) by the stars 

 Gamma and Psi; {i) by the star Pi; and (.3) by a set of 

 five small stars bearing no Greek letter, but numbered by 

 Flamsteed 5-i to 59. 



And now we have reached the prow end of the ark, and 

 find standing there the human part of the Centaur, a fine 

 manlike figure. This constellation has always been regarded 

 as bearing sacrifice to the Altar, Ara. He was upright in the 

 southern skies at the time we are dealing with, a circum- 

 stance which helps the imagination in picturing the figure 

 of a man. His head was marked by a group of small stars ; 

 Theta and Iota marked his shoulders, Alpha and Beta his 

 feet. A long straight row of stars, extending on the east to 

 Kappa, marked the spear or rod, on which ho bore an 

 animal, later called a wolf, towards the altar. Few of the 

 human constellations are so characteristically defined in the 



