aborious care, in multiples of the earth's polar
diameter, a metric system, including linear and liquid measures, and a
system of weights based on a cubical measure of water of uniform
temperature; which uniform temperature they took the utmost care to
preserve. He shows further, that they were acquainted with the
precession of the equinoxes, with the density of the earth, and with the
earth's distance from the sun; or at least calculated it at what proves
to be nearly a mean of our discordant calculations; and that they were
acquainted with problems just beginning to attract the attention of the
science of Europe.

When we know that the Chaldeans taught the Egyptians the expansive power
of steam, and the induction of electricity by pointed conductors; that
from the most remote antiquity the Chinese were acquainted with decimal
fractions, electro-magnetism, the mariner's compass, and the art of
making glass; that lenses have been found in the ruins of Nineveh, and
that an artificial currency was in circulation in the first cities built
after the flood;[300] that astronomical observations were made in China,
with so much accuracy, from the deluge till the days of Yau, B. C. 2357,
that the necessary intercalations were made for harmonizing the solar
with the lunar year, and fixing the true period of 365-1/4 days; and
that similar observations were conducted to a like result within a few
years of the same remote period, in Babylon;--if the reader does not
conclude that the world may have forgotten as much ancient lore during
eighteen hundred years of idolatrous barbarism before the coming of
Christ, as it has learned in the same number since, he will, at least,
satisfy himself that the ancient patriarchs were not ignorant
savages.[301] "Whole nations," says La Place, "have been swept from the
earth, with their languages, arts, and sciences, leaving but confused
masses of ruins to mark the place where mighty cities stood. Their
history, with a few doubtful traditions, has perished; _but the
perfection of their astronomical observations marks their high
antiquity, fixes the periods of their existence, and proves that even at
that early time they must have made considerable progress in
science_."[302] The Infidel theory, that the first men were savages, is
a pure fiction, refuted by every known fact of their history.

That, however, is not the matter under discussion. We are not inquiring
now, what Moses and the prophets _th