The set of integers, ℤ, is the prototypical ring.

If anything has to go short, it will not be the heifers or chilver lambs, as they call their yearling ewes ; and in fact , as I have already said, except in the occasional seasons of drouth, the Dorset ewe during the four or five years of her life never knows what it is to want.

According to this teaching believed in by Aristotle if we may credit Censorinus—the “great year” consists of 21,000 odd years (the latter varying) or six Chaldean saros consisting of 3,500 years each. These two decimillenniums are naturally halved, the first period of 10,500 years bringing us to the top of the cycle and a minor cataclysm; the latter decimillennium to a terrible and universal geological convulsion.

Now should men see / Two women faster welded in one love / Than pairs of wedlock.