require a painstaking analysis before we can make ourselves master of their meaning!  And even when we have determined to our satisfaction their literal signification, what a number of excursions we must make in the domain of religious, ethical, and political history before we can compel them to render up to us their full import, or make them as intelligible to others as they are to ourselves!  When so many commentaries are required to interpret the thought of an individual or a people, some difficulty must be experienced in estimating the value of the expression which they have given to it.  Elements of beauty were certainly, and perhaps are still, within it; but in proportion as we clear away the rubbish which encumbers it, the mass of glossaries necessary to interpret it fall in and bury it so as to stifle it afresh.

While the obstacles to our appreciation of Chaldaeann literature are of such a serious character, we are much more at home in our efforts to estimate the extent and depth of their scientific knowledge.  They were as well versed as the Egyptians, but not more, in arithmetic and geometry in as far as these had an application to the affairs of everyday life:  the difference between the two peoples consisted chiefly in their respective numerical systems—­the Egyptians employing almost exclusively the decimal system of notation, while the Chaldaeans combined its use with the duodecimal.

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To express the units, they made use of so many vertical “nails” placed one after, or above, each other, thus [symbols] etc.; tens were represented by bent brackets [symbols], up to 60; beyond this figure they had the choice of two methods of notation:  they could express the further tens by the continuous additions of brackets thus, [symbols] or they could represent 50 by a vertical “nail,” and add for every additional ten a bracket to the right of it, thus:  [symbols].  The notation of a hundred was represented by the vertical “nail” with a horizontal stroke to the right thus [symbols], and the number of hundreds by the symbols placed before this sign, thus [symbols], etc.:  a thousand was written [symbols] i.e. ten times one hundred, and the series of thousands by the combination of different notations which served to express units, tens, and hundreds.  They subdivided the unit, moreover, into sixty equal parts, and each of these parts into sixty further equal subdivisions, and this system of fractions was used in all kinds of quantitive measurements.  The fathom, the foot and its square, talents and bushels, the complete system of Chaldaean weights and measures, were based on the intimate alliance and parallel use of the decimal and duodecimal systems of notation.  The sixtieth was more frequently employed than the hundredth when large quantities were in question:  it was called a “soss,” and ten sosses were equal to a “ner,” while sixty ners were equivalent to a “sar;”