This idea and others connected with it seem to have taken strong hold of the Egyptian priestly caste, entering into their theology and sacred science: ceilings of great temples, with stars, constellations, planets, and signs of the zodiac figured upon them, remain to-day as striking evidences of this.
In Persia we have theories of geography based upon similar conceptions and embalmed in sacred texts.
From these and doubtless from earlier sources common to them all came geographical legacies to the Hebrews.

Various passages in their sacred books, many of them noble in conception and beautiful in form, regarding "the foundation of the earth upon the waters," "the fountains of the great deep," "the compass upon the face of the depth," the "firmament," the "corners of the earth," the "pillars of heaven," the "waters above the firmament," the "windows of heaven," and "doors of heaven," point us back to both these ancient springs of thought.( 25) (25) For survivals of the early idea, among the Eskimos, of the sky as supported by mountains, and, among sundry Pacific islanders, of the sky as a firmament or vault of stone, see Tylor, Early History of Mankind, second edition, London, 1870, chap.

xi; Spencer, Sociology, vol.i, chap vii, also Andrew Lang, La Mythologie, Paris, 1886, pp.

68-73.

For the Babylonian theories, see George Smith's Chaldean Genesis, and especially the German translation by Delitzsch, Leipsic, 1876; also, Jensen, Die Kosmogonien der Babylonier, Strasburg, 1890; see especially in the appendices, pp.