years ago by Father Strassmeier of a Babylonian tablet recording a
partial lunar eclipse at Babylon in the seventh year of Cambyses, on
the fourteenth day of the Jewish month Tammuz." Ptolemy, in the
Almagest (Suntaxis), says it occurred in the seventh year of Cambyses,
on the night of the seventeenth and eighteenth of the Egyptian month
Phamenoth. Pingre and Oppolzer fix the date July 16th, 533 B.C. Thus
are the relations of the chronologies of Jews and Egyptians
established by these explorations.


FOOTNOTES:

[1] These ancient dates are uncertain.

[2] _R. A. S. Monthly Notices_, vol. lxviii., No. 5, March, 1908.



3. ANCIENT GREEK ASTRONOMY.


We have our information about the earliest Greek astronomy from
Herodotus (born 480 B.C.). He put the traditions into writing. Thales
(639-546 B.C.) is said to have predicted an eclipse, which caused much
alarm, and ended the battle between the Medes and Lydians. Airy fixed
the date May 28th, 585 B.C. But other modern astronomers give
different dates. Thales went to Egypt to study science, and learnt
from its priests the length of the year (which was kept a profound
secret!), and the signs of the zodiac, and the positions of the
solstices. He held that the sun, moon, and stars are not mere spots on