[105] Going in and out, we should suppose, with every angle. Should any one do this with a rule at St. Paul's Cathedral, it is probable he might compass a mile.
[106] The largest pyramid is 110 feet higher than St. Paul's, with a base occupying about the same area as Lincoln's Inn Fields.
[107] The advantageous situation of Babylon, which was built upon a wide, extended, flat country, where no mountains bounded the prospect; the constant clearness and serenity of the air in that country, so favourable to the free contemplation of the heavens; perhaps, also, the extraordinary height of the tower of Babel, which seems to have been intended for an observatory; all these circumstances were strong motives to engage this people to a more nice observation of the various motions of the heavenly bodies, and the regular course of the stars.—Rollin.
[108] Diodorus states, that in his time many monuments still remained with inscriptions upon them.
[109] Val. Max. ix. c. 3.
[110] A statue was erected in memory of this action, representing her in that very attitude, and the undress, which had not prevented her from flying to her duty.
[111] Daniel, c. iv.
[112] Diodorus; Prideaux.
[113] "The hanging gardens," says Major Rennell, "as they are called, had an area of about three acres and a half, and in them were grown trees of considerable size; and it is not improbable, that they were of a species different from those of the natural growth of the alluvial soil of Babylonia. These trees may have been perpetuated in the same spot where they grew (or seeds from them), notwithstanding that the terraces may have subsided, by the crumbling of the piers and walls that supported them; the ruins of which may form the very eminences, spoken of by M. Niebuhr, and which are covered with a particular kind of trees." That is, with trees different from any that grow between the ruins and the Persian gulf, in which space no other trees are to be found but date and other fruit trees.
[114] Daniel, ch. v., ver. 25.