142 



E. WALTER MAUNDER, F.R.A.S., ON 



would imply not a single stoppage of the sun on one unique occasion, 

 but of four distinct reversals of the direction of the earth's rotation. 

 Probably Herodotus misunderstood some mystical statement of the 

 Egyptian priests, and gave a literal meaning to what they were 

 expressing figuratively. 



The quotation from Alexander Hamilton is correctly given, but 

 evidently Mr. Collett, who brings it forward,* has not studied 

 Hamilton's book, which was written to show that Indian chronology 

 was not chronology at all in our sense of the word ; it was symbolical, 

 and Hamilton's belief was that he had found a clue to the symbolism. 

 The chronology is certainly unreal, but Hamilton was not aware 

 that that particular phase of Indian astronomy was not ancient, 

 but belonged to the dark ages between the sixth and eleventh 

 centuries a.d. 



Our only authority, then, for this narrative is the chapter itself, 

 but there are three verbs in the chapter the interpretation of which 

 is in dispute. The first is damam, " to be dumb," that is, " to cease 

 from speaking " ; the second, cmuid, is used as a parallel word to 

 damam ; and the third is uts, " to urge oneself," " to hasten."! 



* I am obhged here to jDoint out that Mr. Collett's book, The Scripture 

 of Truth, however excellent for the most part, has one short section in 

 the eighth edition, pp. 284-288, entitled " Joshua's Long Day," which I 

 would beg him to delete in toto from every future edition. This whole 

 section is either wrong in its assertions, or misleading in the way in which 

 they are appUed. 



f Gesenius, in his Lexicon, translated by S. P. Tregelles, 1881 Edition 

 gives the following information : — 



(1) Damam, p. 203. (1) To be silent, to be still. (2) To he astonished, 



confounded. (3) To be quiet, to cease, to leave off. In a note it 

 is added, " This root is onomatopoetic, and one which is widely 

 spread in other families of languages, . . . it is an imita- 

 tion of the sound of the shut mouth (Aw, dm). Its proper 

 meaning, therefore, is to be dumb, which is applied both to 

 silence and quietness." 



(2) A mad, p. 637. (1) To stand. Used of men, and of inanimate 



things. Followed by propositions — (a) to stand before a king, 

 i.e. to serve or minister to him ; (6) to be set oveVf to confide, to 

 stand by anyone. (2) To stand for, to stand firm, to remain,, to 



