A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



a strong impression upon the minds of a people living 

 in a valley. The fact that occasional excessive inun- 

 dations have led to most disastrous results is evidenced 

 in the incorporation of stories of the almost total de- 

 struction of mankind by such floods among the myth 

 tales of all peoples who reside in valley countries. The 

 flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates had not, it is true, 

 quite the same significance for the Mesopotamians that 

 the Nile flood had for the Egyptians. Nevertheless it 

 was a most important phenomenon, and may very 

 readily be imagined to have been the most tangible 

 index to the seasons. But in recognizing the time of 

 the inundations and the vernal equinox, the Assyrians 

 did not dethrone the moon from its accustomed pre- 

 cedence, for the year was reckoned as commencing not 

 precisely at the vernal equinox, but at the new moon 

 next before the equinox. 



ASTROLOGY 



Beyond marking the seasons, the chief interests that 

 actuated the Babylonian astronomer in his observa- 

 tions were astrological. After quoting Diodorus to the 

 effect that the Babylonian priests observed the position 

 of certain stars in order to cast horoscopes, Thompson 

 tells us that from a very early day the very name 

 Chaldean became synonymous with magician. He 

 adds that "from Mesopotamia, by way of Greece and 

 Rome, a certain amount of Babylonian astrology made 

 its way among the nations of the west, and it is quite 

 probable that many superstitions which we commonly 

 record as the peculiar product of western civilization 

 took their origin from those of the early dwellers on the 



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