An historical survey of the astronomy of the ancients / by Sir George Cornewall Lewis.
- George Cornewall Lewis
- Date:
- 1862
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An historical survey of the astronomy of the ancients / by Sir George Cornewall Lewis. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
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![We can trace the same system of great constructive works in operation in other Oriental countries, according to the mea- sure of their means. Herodotus says that the tomb of Alyattes, king of Lydia, a mound of earth, resting on a basement of large stones above three-quarters of a mile in circumference, was the greatest work after those of Egypt and Babylon. (15°) The Temple of Jerusalem was likewise a great enterprize for the comparatively limited kingdom of Solomon.(151) This temple, after passing through various casualties, had grown to an enormous size and strength, when the city was besieged by Titus. (152) The great wall of China, which is twenty feet in height, and twenty-five feet in thickness at the base, and which extends for ] 400 miles, was constructed about two hundred years before the Christian era. Its utility in defence is unimportant, and it seems to have been dictated by the caprice of a powerful despot. Two hundred thousand men are said to have perished in the work.(153) The Taj Mahul near Agra, in Northern India, erected by Shah Jehan, as a mausoleum for himself and his queen, in the seventeenth century, is an immense and splendid edifice. Its cost is reported to have exceeded three millions sterling; and the work to have occupied twenty thousand men for twenty-two years. (151) The Kuth Minar, the highest column in the world, (150) i. 93. The remains of this barrow are still extant; see Baw- linson's Herodotus, vol. i. p. 232. Mr. Hamilton estimates the circum- ference at nearly half a mile. The story of the diversion of the Halys appears to be fabulous, Herod, i. 75. (151) The account given in 1 Kings v. 13—16, and 2 Chron. ii. 2, is that Solomon assigned the cutting of the timber to 30,000 men, and that they were divided into bodies of 10,000 men, each of which worked for one month out of 3. He further employed 70,000 men as carriers, and 80,000 men as hewers of stone in the quarries. The overseers were 3300 in number. (152) See Joseph. Bell. Jud. v. 5. (153) Concerning the great wall of China, see Anderson's Narrative of the British Embassy to China in 1772, 3, and 4, ed. 2, 8vo, p. 196. (154) See Sleeman's Recollections of an Indian Official, vol. ii. p. 27—37; Tavernier, Voyages des Indes, liv. i. c. 7.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21015855_0452.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
