A cool stream. . . . So on the next trip Thales filled the saddle bags with sponges instead of salt, and the little donkey's happy habit was broken. So as a businessman in lonia, Thales was already using a new type of thinking. A story is told about how he took up both. As he was walking in his garden one night, enraptured by the sparkling splendor of the stars, suddenly the silent stillness of the night was broken by the sound of a great splash and a gurgle.
Nobody likes to be damp and laughed at.
In the days that followed, Thales decided to look at the hot dry earth beneath his feet. And he would see more of the earth itself, by traveling to the ancient countries of Mesopotamia and Egypt. The first stop on his journey was Babylon, a glamorous city with a long history and a large library of cuneiform tablets. There he was fascinated by the impressive records of the stargazers. He stayed for quite a while-poring over the charts, studying the methods of sky measurement, learning the use of the circle and its divisions for measuring angles and directions.