The Nevada journal., 1858-06-18

~ Sir Henry Rawlinson, the Orien-
tai explorer, lectured at the Scriptural
Museum London, lately, on recent Ori-
entail discoveries in relation to the Bible.
IN the course of his lecture he said
The whole country of Assyria had
been excavated in the course If his re-
searches, and cylinders, tablets and
prisms had heen extracted from the
ruins Of the ancient temples, filed with
inscriptions, which had now been de-
ciphered, and in many instances. they
served not only to verify Scripture, but
to hrnw light upon and ex lai, pls> ages
which had hitherto been OBSCURE. 1t
appeared from these inscriptions that, in
the earliest time, colony had been led
by Nimrod from Egypt into Mesopota-
mia. Nimrod was a Cushite, and be-
lohged to the family of Ham. He was
afterwards worshipped as a divinity, by
the name of Nergal z Kings. xvii 30)
whose attributes were equivalent 10
those of Mars. The Inscriptions enabled
Sir Henry to explain the meaning of
many names Of early Scripture history,
all Of which were significant. Thus,
Shem, Ham and Japet signifed the parts
of the cenntry they inhabited. The
meaning of Ham was the right hand,
indicating that he lived in Arabia; Shem
signifed the left, or Assyria: and Japet
was the intermediate country. The
names of Europe and Asia are purely
Babylonian, meaning the li,i G and set
ting of the sun, which names were af-
forwards adopted by the Greeks. The
rames Shinar was really HammiIe
rame of the country; and after the
people of Nimrod bad been dliven int
the mountains, they took the name Of
Shinar with them.
Sir Henry said that the descendants
Of Ham were In the habit of counting by
sixties. They divided the day and night
into sixty hours instead of twenty-fnur
hours He might also observe, that the
order of the planets, according to the
Chaldeau cosmogony, was as follows:
L Moon; 2. Mercury; 3. Venus; Sun;
S. Mars, 6 Jupiter; T. Saturn. The rule
then, which regulated the nomenclature
was as follows: The day and night
were in the first place divided into sixty
hours, and the planets ruled over them
N succession, in a recurring series OF
ssTens, and the planet whose turn 1t was
to rule the first hour of the day gave its
name to the day. Thus, let he first
hour Of the day be ruled by the moon,
and the day will be called Monday; The
sixty-first hour then, which commences
the second day. viii be ruled by the fifth
planet which is Mars, and the day will
be called Dies Martis, Mardi, or Tues
Day; ,he l2Ist hour, or third day, will
fall to No ?, Mercury, hence Dies, 1Her-
o4rii. Uercredj. or Wednesday; the lSlst
hour. or fourth day falls to No. 6, Jupi-
ter-Dies Joris, Jeudi, or Thursday; the
241st hour, or fifth day, falls to No 3,
OF Nenus-hence Dies, FenerlS. or Ven
drsdi, the 30lst hour, or sixth day, be-
longs to the seventh planet, or Saturn
hence Dies Saturn, Samcdi, or Satur-
day and the 36lst hour, or seventh day,
to No. T. or the Sun-hence Dies Soils,
or Sunday. The simple way of calcu-
lating this, is simply to divide the hours
that is 81, 12l, ISL, PAL. SOL, and 36l,
by 7. ana the reminder will give the
humber of the planet which rules the
first hour, and consequently gives a
name to the day. 1t is remarkable
fact, he observed, that the Indians also
reckoned by sixties, which indicated a
connection between the Chaldees and
Indians, of which there are no records.