2.  Stars, their appearance (in figures) of animals he arranged.

3.  To fix the year through the observation of their constellations,

4.  Twelve months or signs of stars in three rows he arranged,

5.  From the day when the year commences unto the close.

6.  He marked the positions of the wandering stars to shine in their courses,

7.  That they may not do injury, and may not trouble any one.”

That is to say, the civilized race that followed the great cataclysm, with whom the history of the event was

[1.  Discourses,” book iii, chapter xiii.

2.  Brinton’s Myths of the New World,” p. 215.

3.  Proctor’s Pleasant Ways,” p. 393.]

{p. 224}

yet fresh, and who were impressed with all its horrors, and who knew well the tenure of danger and terror on which they held all the blessings of the world, turned their attention to the study of the heavenly bodies, and sought to understand the source of the calamity which had so recently overwhelmed the world.  Hence they “marked,” as far as they were able, “the positions of the ‘comets,’” “that they might not” again “do injury, and not trouble any one.”  The word here given is Nibir, which Mr. Smith says does not mean planets, and, in the above account, Nibir is contradistinguished from the stars; they have already been arranged in constellations; hence it can only mean comets.

And the tablet proceeds, with distinct references to the Age of Darkness: 

“8.  The positions of the gods Bel and Hea he fixed with him,

9.  And he opened the great gates in the darkness shrouded.

10.  The fastenings were strong on the left and right.

11.  In its mass, (i. e., the lower chaos,) he made a boiling.

12.  The god Uru (the moon) he caused to rise out, the night he overshadowed,

13.  To fix it also for the light of the night until the shining of the day.

14.  That the month might not be broken, and in its amount be regular,

15.  At the beginning of the month, at the rising of the night,

16.  His (the sun’s) horns are breaking through to shine on the heavens.

17.  On the seventh day to a circle he begins to swell,

18.  And stretches toward the dawn further,

19.  When the god Shamas, (the in the horizon of heaven, in the east,

20 . . . . formed beautifully and . . .

21 . . . . to the orbit Shamas was perfected.”

{p. 225}

Here the tablet becomes illegible.  The meaning, however, seems plain: 

Although to left and right, to east and west, the darkness was fastened firm, was dense, yet “the great gods opened the great gates in the darkness,” and let the light through.  First, the moon appeared, through a “boiling,” or breaking up of the clouds, so that now men were able to once more count time by the movements of the moon.  On the seventh day, Shamas, the sun, appeared; first, his horns, his beams, broke through the darkness imperfectly; then he swells to a circle, and comes nearer and nearer to perfect dawn; at last he appeared on the horizon, in the east, formed beautifully, and his orbit was perfected; i. e., his orbit could be traced continuously through the clearing heavens.