ics of the
ancient Chaldaeans; but there is reason to believe that this was a branch
of industry in which they particularly excelled. We know that as early
as the time of Joshua a Babylonian garment had been imported into
Palestine, and was of so rare a beauty as to attract the covetous regards
of Achan, in common with certain large masses of the precious metals.
The very ancient cylinder figured above must belong to a time at least
five or six centuries earlier; upon it we observe flounced and fringed
garments, delicately striped, and indicative apparently of an advanced
state of textile manufacture. Recent researches do not throw much light
on this subject. The frail materials of which human apparel is composed
can only under peculiar circumstances resist the destructive power of
thirty or forty centuries; and consequently we have but few traces of the
actual fabrics in use among the primitive people. Pieces of linen are
said to have been found attaching to some of the skeletons in the tombs;
and the sun-dried brick which supports the head is sometimes covered with
the remains of a "tasselled cushion of tapestry;" but otherwise we are
without direct evidence either as to the material in use, or as to the
character of the fabric. In later times Babylon was especially
celebrated for its robes and its carpets. Such evidence as we have would
seem to make it probable that both manufactures had attained to
considerable excellence in Chaldaean times.

The only sciences in which the early Chaldaeans can at present be proved
to have excelled are the cognate ones of arithmetic and astronomy. On
the broad and monotonous plains of Lower Mesopotamia, where the earth has
little upon it to suggest thought or please by variety, the "variegated
heaven," ever changing with the hours and with the seasons, would early
attract attention, while the clear sky, dry atmosphere, and level horizon
would afford facilities for observations, so soon as the idea of them
suggested itself to the minds of the inhabitants. The "Chaldaean
learning" of a later age appears to have been originated, in all its
branches, by the primitive people; in whose language it continued to be
written even in Semitic times.

We are informed by Simplicius that Callisthenes, who accompanied
Alexander to Babylon, sent to Aristotle from that capital a series of
astronomical observations, which he had found preserved there, extending
back to a period of 1903 years f