sky was clear, and all of a sudden my
niece said to me, 'Oh, look up, there is a star walking into
the moon!' 'Glorious!' I answered. 'We are looking at the
Transit of Venus, which crowds of scientists have gone to the
end of the world to see.'"

The Transit of Venus did take place on December 6, 1882; and though
Venus could have been seen without telescopic aid as a black spot on the
sun's disc, nothing can be more unlike Venus in transit than "a star
walking into the moon." The moon was not visible on that evening, and
Venus was only visible when on the sun's disc, and appeared then, not as
a star, but as a black dot.

No doubt Lady Burton's niece did make the exclamation attributed to her,
but it must have been, not on December 6, 1882, but on some other
occasion. Lady Burton may indeed have told her niece that this was the
Transit of Venus, but that was simply because she did not know what a
transit was, nor that it occurred in the daytime, not at night. Lady
Burton's narrative was therefore not written at the time. So if the
facts of the tenth chapter of Joshua, as we have it, had not been
written at the time of the battle, some gross astronomical discordance
would inevitably have crept in.

Let us suppose that the sun and moon did actually stand still in the sky
for so long a time that between noon and sunset was equal to the full
length of an ordinary day. What effect would have resulted that the
Israelites could have perceived? This, and this only, that they would
have marched twice as far between noon and sunset as they could have
done in any ordinary afternoon. And this as we have seen, is exactly
what they are recorded to have done.

The only measure of time, available to the Israelites, independent of
the apparent motion of the sun, was the number of miles marched. Indeed,
with the Babylonians, the same word (_kasbu_) was used to indicate three
distinct, but related measures. It was a measure of time--the double
hour; of celestial arc--the twelfth part of a great circle, thirty
degrees, that is to say the space traversed by the sun in two hours; and
it was a measure of distance on the surface of the earth--six or seven
miles, or a two hours' march.

If, for the sake of illustration, we may suppose that the sun were to
stand still for us, we should recognize it neither by sundial nor by
shadow, but we should see that whereas our clocks had indicated that the
sun had risen (we will sa