150 METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATORIES. 



no doubt, sharpened by tbe consideration of the chances which deter- 

 mine the date of their next meal of fish or game. 



NILOMETER. 



It is a long step from the lookout tree of the savage to the more 

 scientific efforts of the Egyptians and Greeks, who certainly had sys- 

 tematic observations made in special buildings, and which structures 

 might with truth be called observatories, though not supplied like ours 

 with means and methods of a high and complicated order. The great 

 pyramid has been claimed for such an observatory, and some writers 

 suppose that from an opening in its side the learned priests watched 

 the transits of the stars and the rising of the constellations to deter- 

 mine the march of the various seasons suitable for agriculture or for 

 the irrigation of their people's lands. Then they had Kilometers at 

 various points in the course of their river, by which they took accurate 

 note of its height at any season. There were many of these structures, 

 perhaps the oldest being that at Meurphis. There is one on the island 

 of Rtooda, near Cairo, which remains in full operation to this day, hav- 

 ing been more than eleven centuries in existence; and it may be claimed 

 as the oldest flood gauge — and therefore rain gauge — in the world. 

 The older Nilometers are mentioned by Herodotus, Strabo, and others, 

 while our own Shakespeare thus speaks of this matter in the play of 

 Antony and Cleopatra: 



They take the flow o' the Nile 

 By certain scales i' the pyramid; they know, 

 By the height, the lowness, or the mean, if dearth, 

 Or foison follow. The higher Nilus swells, 

 The more it promises. 1 



Although Shakespeare was probably mistaken in placing a Mlometer 

 in a pyramid, it is very wonderful that he should have known of it 

 at all. 



Messrs. Symons and Chatterton, in their paper on floods 2 last year, 

 deplored the absence of systematic flood marks on the Thames and 

 Severn, and I commend the authorities to the ancient Egyptians for an 

 example. 



TEMPLE OF THE WINDS, ATHENS. 



The Greeks inherited and sifted out all the wisdom of Egypt, and it 

 therefore does not surprise us to find in the very heart of ancient 

 Athens, and almost under the shadow of the Acropolis, a building 

 which may be claimed as an archetype of observatories, and which yet 

 remains standing in the modern city. 



I mean the little marble octagon tower called the Temple of the Winds. 

 The eight sides of this temple are built to face the eight principal 

 winds, and on each side is sculptured a human figure in high relief, and 



1 Antony and Cleopatra, Act 2, Scene VII. 



2 Quarterly Journal, Vol. XXI, page 189. 



