Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/316

 the Favour to communicate this following Paper.

'As for the Astronomy of the Ancients, this is usually reckoned for one of those Sciences wherein consisted the Learning of the Egyptians; and Strabo expresly declares, That there were in Babylonia several Universities, wherein Astronomy was chiefly professed; and Pliny tells us much the same thing: So that it might well be expected, that where such a Science was so much studied, it ought to have been proportionably cultivated. Notwithstanding all which it does appear, That there was nothing done by the Chaldæans older than about CCCC Years before Alexander's Conquest, that could be serviceable either to Hipparchus, or Ptolemee in their Determination of the celestial Motions: For had there been any Observations older than those we have, it cannot be doubted but the victorious Greeks must have procured them, as well as those they did, they being still more valuable for their Antiquity. All we have of them is only Seven Eclipses of the Moon, preserved in Ptolemee's Syntaxis; and even those, but very coursely set down, and the oldest not much above 700 Years before Christ, so that