of light, bright and transparent as pearl and sometimes as diamond (or the element carbon). Ibid. nn. 1115, 1116.

4277. [Dan. ii. 33.] Soda should, with propriety, be treated as an elementary principle. The vapor of red hot hydrate of soda, passed over iron turnings in a gun-barrel heated to whiteness, is decomposed into water and soda, and the former again into oxygen, which unites to the iron, and hydrogen which escapes, whilst the soda unites to the iron or its oxide, forming a white metallic compound. Clay is a mixture of two or more earths with iron. DALTON'S Chem. Philos. part ii. pp. 494, 503, 527.

4279. [35.] The vegetation of stones has been admitted by many, and some have contended that minerals, as well as animals and vegetables, spring from seed, the greatest rock being nothing but the expansion of the parts of a minute grain of sand.

WATSON'S Chem. Ess. vol. v. p. 165. In stones and metals we may behold sundry shapes and veins, such as the shoots, as it were of branches and roots, spread far and wide, which they have in their mines and quarries; from whence a friendly alment gently filtrates, first through more lax, afterwards gradually through more narrow ones, to refine and make pure the nutriment; and finally, an exhalation passes through thin and hidden pores. See 1 Peter ii. 4. TOLAND'S Pantheisticon, p. 29.

4280. As growing trees and trees hewed down differ, so do stones in quarries, and stones hewed out of them: Those are alive, and these are dead; those in their native beds are full of sap, these torn asunder are destitute of moisture, and at length are reduced to dust.

Ibid. p. 32.

4281. [38.] This prince (Nebuchadnezzar) was not only the first emperor at Babylon; but also the man in whom the Assyrian or Babylonian greatness arrived at its utmost height.

Univer. Hist. vol. iv. p. 304.

4282. [39, 40.] Juan II. of Castille, was caught

in a shower of stones one day when he was hunting; they were like pumice stones in their appearance, and so light, that some which were as big as half a bushel did not weigh half a pound, and might have fallen upon any person's head without hurting it. This fact has, I believe, escaped the notice of writers who have investigated this singular subject. It is well authenticated. The king sent some of them by his physician to Juan de Mena, and the physician relates the circumstance in his letters. It is, perhaps, the most important fact of the kind, as, from the levity of the stones, it is plain that they must have been formed in the atmosphere. Athenæum, No. 4. p. 360.

These, in reference to the harder atmospheric stones that occasionally fall, are like flakes of snow compared with hail :both originate from the same causes and materials, but they are differently modified, probably, in the medium through which they descend.

Men of great chemical knowledge, are inclined to suppose that not only the substances analogous to the Alkalies are of a metallic nature, but that sulphur, phosphorus, and carbone, are also metallic compounds not saturated with oxygen, and that even hydrogen and azote are metallic substances in a gaseous state. Ibid. vol. ii. p. 73.

4283. [Dan. ii. 39, 40.] The idea of the four ages of the world originated among the Indians. Originally, these four ages were merely the four seasons; and as each season was ander the supposed influence of a planet, it bore the name of the metal appropriated to that planet: thus spring was the age of the sun, or of gold; summer the age of the moon, or of silver; autumn the age of Venus, or of copper; and winter the age of Mars, or of iron. Afterwards, when astronomers invented the great year of 25 and 36 thousand common years, which had for its object the bringing back all the stars to one point of departure and general conjunction, the ambiguity of the terms introduced a similar ambiguity of ideas; and the myriads of celestial sigus and periods of duration which were thus measured, were easily converted into so many revolutions of the sun.

The periods assigned for renewing the face of nature, were at first the period of the year, and afterwards periods of 60, of 600, of 25,000, of 36,000, of 432,000 years. See No. 1313. VOLNEY.

4284. [Dan. iii. 4, 5.] At the coronation of Solyman, king of Persia, says CHARDIN, p. 51, the general of the musqueteers, having whispered some few minutes in the king's ear, among several other things of less importance, gave out, that both the loud and soft music should play in the two balconies on the top of the great building, which stands at one

end of the palace royal. No nation was dispensed with, whether Persians, Indians, Turks, Muscovites, Europeans, or others. And this same confusion of instruments, which sounded more like the noise of war than music, lasted twenty days together, without intermission or the interruption of night which number of days was observed to answer the number of the young monarch's years, who was then twenty years of age.

4285. [Dan. iii. 12.] Daniel was not accused as well as bis friends; because, probably, his enemies might think it dangerous to begin with so great a favourite, choosing to pave the way to his destruction by that of his three friends. These however being miraculously delivered, Daniel escaped of course. See Univer. Hist. vol. iv. p. 316.

4286. [21. Hosen] The Eastern people, in geueral, appear not to have used stockings.

See Frag. to Calmet, Third Hundred,
p. 99.
HARMER.

lay, is still adhering to it, and found to be what the Greeks called asphaltos, and the Latins bitumen; brought, says HERODOTUS (Lib. i. p. 84. Edit. L. C. Valek) by the river Is into the Euphrates, and thence conveyed in lumps to the walls of Babylon. These things considered, we cannot but conclude, that the Babylonians could, in a very short time and at a moderate expense, erect such immense structures, as the walls which surrounded their city, the vast edifice of the temple of Belus, the palace, the hanging gardens, and other magnificent works; which, adorned or built by Nebuchadnezzar, so filled his heart with pride. Archæologia, vol. xiv. pp. 55 ~60.

4290. [Dan. iv. 30, 31.]

Vain glory, like a circle in the water,
Never ceases to enlarge within us,

Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought.

SHAKESPEARE.

Here was one of the awful reactions of a righteous Providence.

H. HUNTER, D. D.

4291. [

-33.] In the icicles of wine, collateral shoots stand at equal height, and at acute angles with their main and longer shoots, like feathers. Hence, as fowls have no organs for evacuation of urine, the urinous parts of their blood are evacuated by the habit of skin, where they produce and nourish feathers.

Phil Trans. of R. S. vol. ii. p. 56.

The upper part of the Ostrich's head and neck are covered with a very fine clear white hair, that shines like the bristles of a hog; and in some places there are small tufts of it, consisting of about twelve hairs, which grow from a single shaft about the thickness of a pin.

4297.

Nabonadius, Nebuchadnezzar's son's son (Jer. xxvii. 7), is believed to have been the Belshazzar of Scripture; and Cyaxares, the Darius the Mede.

Thus the Assyrian monarchy, whether the first at Nineveh, or the second at Babylon, never obtained dominion over the nations for any considerable time: it contended for, rather than enjoyed empire in any settled form. Darius cannot properly be said to have stormed the city or won it by conquest, as that was done by Cyrus in the absence of Darius. Yet, as Cyrus was Darius's general conquering with his master's joint forces of Medes and Persians, in that sense Darius the Median took the kingdom.

4298.

Ibid. vol. iv. pp. 350, 405, 354, 403.

- In

Darius took the kingdom in consequence of Cyrus's cutting off that branch of the Euphrates, which passed through the midst of the city. He could then march his army by the channel of the river, to an easy victory in the night over the drunken and slumbering Babylonians. Ptolemy's map Babylon is seated on the Naharmalcha; au artificial stream brought out of the Euphrates. This cut was probably filled up at the head by the Median conqueror. The water would necessarily resume its former course, and not drown the adjacent country. (See Univer. Hist. vol. iv. p. 323.) — In this view of the operation, the whole affair becomes intelligible and consistent.

Other nations, besides the Jews, had not at that period any written laws. Even the polished Athenians were regulated by nothing more stable than antient customs, until the year B. C. 623; when Draco, the Archon, undertook to compose for them a code of laws, so sanguinary, that every offence was indiscriminately punished with death. This induced Demades, an Athenian orator, to say, They were written not with ink, but with blond. - Even at this, day, among the natives of Sierra Leone, the laws are traditional, and are merely the local customs of the country.

Lieut. MATTHEWS.

4303. [ 22.] The lion has been often seen to despise contemptible enemies, aud to pardon their insults when it was in his power to punish them. He has been seen to spare the lives of such as were thrown to be devoured by him, to live peaceably with them, to afford them a part of his subsistence, and sometimes to want food himself rather than deprive them of that life which his generosity had spared.

GOLDSMITH'S Hist. of the Earth, &c. vol. iii. p. 218,

4304. [Dan. vii. 7.] Some sheep in Persia, have six or seven horns standing straight out of their forehead; so that when their rams engage, there is usually much blood spilled in the battle.

Horns being considered by the Antients as emblems and symbols of power and majesty, Alexander is always described by the Grecian historians, as having a horn on his forehead, or rather a particular lock of hair, resembling one; and it is also observed on the coins and medals of that prince, which are still to be seen in the cabinets of the curious.

Univer. Hist. vol. iii. p. 162. These thrones were three spiritual spheres above and around our earth; on each of which the Image of God was distinctly exhibited, as Adam on the highest; as the Antient of days, on the middlemost; and as Jehovah, on the lowest. The fourth sphere, expanded under the other three, - the new heaven which John saw, the place prepared in the air, where we must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, was not yet formed: it could not exist, till during the incarnation, the Glory which came forth from the Father into the Person of Jesus Christ, was raised or returned through the medium of his body, to cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

produced by them appear to approach to, or recede from, each other, being at the greatest distance, when the wedges are close to the object-glass, but united, when the prisms are removed, in a parallel position, to the focus of the eyeglass. Phil. Trans. vol. xiv. p. 257.

4309. [Dan. viii. 2.] Shushan is doubtless the city Susa in Susiana, situated on the river Eulous stiled by the prophet Ulai.

It now lies in ruins and is known, as TAVERNIER informs us, by the name of Scheuster or Suster. Univer. Hist. vol. iv. pp. 471, 474.

4310. [5,] An antient bronze figure of a goat with one horn, which was the old symbol of Macedon, was dug up in Asia Minor, and was brought, together with other antiquities, into this country by a poor Turk. As it has a square hole underneath its body, it is very probable that it might have been affixed to the top of a military standard, in the same manner as the Roman eagle. This supposition is somewhat supported by what is related of Caranus (JUSTIN, Lib. vii. cap. i) that he ordered goats to be carried before (as the standards of) his army. (Archeologia, vol. xiv. pp. 14 19.) Accordingly the king of Persia, when at the head of his army, wore a ram's head made of gold and set with precious stones, instead of a diadem.

--

AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS, lib. xix. cap.i.

The type of Persia being a ram, AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS informs us, that the king of Persia, when at the head of his army, wore a ram's head made of gold, and set with precious stones, instead of a diadem. lib. xix. cap. 1.

4307. [12.] In the antient dialect of Astronomy the earth was said to enter successively into the ram, the bull, the goat, and thus to pass from one animal into another till she had gone through all the signs of the zodiac. Now as deceased souls remain for some time on the spiritual spheres of the earth thus traversing the constellations, they were said in a language that has been completely misunderstood, to transmigrate into animals, particularly into such as predominated respectively at the times of their decease. See No. 1755, 1756. See Abbe PLUCHE's Hist. of the Heav. vol. i. p. 242.

4308. [ 13.] When two achromatic prisms or wedges are applied between the object-glass and eye-glass of an achromatic telescope, by moving the prisms nearer to, or farther from, the object-glass, the two images of an object

Verse 5. And the king of the south] Ptolemy the son of Lagus, the first who reigned in Egypt after Alexander.

Shall be strong] He had dominion over Egypt, Libya, Cyrene, Arabia, Palestine, and Colo-Syria; over most of the maritime provinces of Asia Minor; over Cyprus, and other isles in the Egean Sea; and over the cities Cycion and Corinth in Greece.

And he shall be strong above him] That is, Seleucus Nicator, the king of the north (verse 6), should be more powerful than Ptolemy, the king of the south. Accordingly, this Seleucus Nicator had under him all the countries of the East, from mount Taurus to the river Indus; several provinces in Asia Minor, lying between Taurus and the Ægean Sea; and, before his death, the kingdoms of Thrace and Macedon,

Verse 6.] They the two kings shall join themselves together by a treaty of peace, effected when

4316. [20.] Javan, the fourth son of Japheth, is here used for Greece: he is said to have come into Greece after the confusion of Babel, and to have settled in Attica, whence the Attics were named Jaones and Jones.

Univer. Hist. vol. vii. p. 56.

--

4318. [Dan. xi. 10.] But his the king of Syria'ssons-Seleucus Ceraunus and Antiochus, afterwards surnamed the Great shall be stirred up, and shall assemble a multitude of great forces: and one Antiochus the Great shall certainly come against Ptolemy Philopater king of Egypt and overflow dispossessing him of Cœlo-Syria and pass through-defeating Ptolemy's generals in the passes near Berytus- then shall he return having conquered part of Phenice and be stirred up advancing on the frontiers of Egypt.

even to his fortresses

4317. [Dan. xi. 2. fourth son of Japheth. See, on these predictions (or rather, historic facts), Univer. Hist. vol. viii. pp. 466, &c. and pp. 546, &c. pp. 579, &c. -Three kings in Persia] Cyrus, then on the throne; Cambyses his son; and Darius the son of Hytaspes.

Greece] The original is Javan, the
See Ch. x. 20.

And the fourth] Xerxes, who invaded Greece with a formidable army.

Verses 3, 4. And a mighty king, &c.] Alexander the Great, whose vast empire at his death was separated into four great kingdoms, and into many petty states, such as Cappadocia, Armenia, Bithynia, &c.

4319. [——————— 11. And the king of the south, &c.] Ptolemy Philopater, an indolent effeminate prince, whose generals however, at Raphia, gained a signal victory over Antiochus the king of the north, who lost a great multitude upwards of ten thousand foot, and three hundred horse, besides four thousand taken prisoners.

Verse 13. The king of the north shall return] Antiochus, fourteen years after this defeat, raised a mighty army in the provinces he had conquered beyond the Euphrates, and returned against Egypt during the minority of Ptolemy Epiphanes, defeated Scopas near Paneas, and regained the whole