J. HENDERSON, |

PRICE Is.

RESEARCHES

ON

FOSSIL BONES,

IN WHICH ARE ESTABLISHED

THE CHARACTERS OF

VARIOUS ANIMALS
WHOSE SPECIES HAVE BEEN DESTROYED

BY TEE REVOLUTIONS OF
Che Globe; -

BY

ARON CUVIER,

Great Officer an ne Legion of lopar! Counsellor of State, and Member of the
Royal Council of Public Instruction, One of the Forty of the French Academy,
Perpetual Secretary to the Academy of Sciences, Member of the Aca-
demies and Royal Societies of London, Berlin, Petersburgh,
Stockholm, Edinburgh, Copenhagen, Gottingen, Turin,

Bavaria, Modena, The Netherlands, Calcutta, and of
the Linnean Society of London, &c. &c. &c. &e.

FOURTH EDITION,

Rehised and Completed
BY ADDITIONAL NOTES,!,«

‘

AND A

SUPPLEMENT LEFT BY THE AUTHOR. y

pond
Triomphante des eaux, du trépas, et du temps,

La terre a cru revoir ses premiers habitaus.

ae

DELILLE.

IN FOUR VOLUMES.

LONDON:
G. HEN DEBSON, 2, OLD BAILEY, LUDGATE- HILL.

AND SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS.

ce

1834. a,

<eigeiedaaea

[WHITE-FRIARS:

a

Cuvier Meseurches on Fossil Hones

Londen, ¢Mendersen. 2. Old Bailey

Vol 2 LLS

‘J

be

u (97107, PIO vA UOSAIPUIf] 4) f UdpUo']

|
|
|

|
|

LIUAGY JLSSOf U0 SAY. WISDEN ADLNID),

Nam P20 GC UdOS Lap UofT 4) LULopueTy”

Giga TS Sninimee sincera POUT PISS Of UI SIYILDISAM SLO2NM 7

rad Bones.

Cuvier: Kesearches om Fo Vol. PL 6

Figure Of the Thies, copied from one of the Temples in upper Egypt.

Fill of an This. drawn from a Mumainy. by MP Olivier. (Half the Natural Sree)

London: GHendersm, 2 Ud Bailey.

THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. 89

@ succession of events united by a semblance of truth. The north of
Europe has no history previcus to its conversion to Christianity ; the
history of Spain, of Gaul, of England, has no earlier date than the
conquest by the Romans; that of northern Italy, previously to the
foundation of Rome, is now almost unknown. The Greeks confess
that they did not know the art of writing until they were taught by
the Pheenicians, about thirty-three or thirty-four centuries ago. For
a long period subsequently, their history is full of fables; and they
are unable to go farther back than three centuries earlier, for the first
traces of their union asa body. We have, in the history of Western

Asia, but a few contradictory extracts, which only reach, with very
slight connexion, to twenty-five centuries back *; and admitting the
few historical details which refer to periods more remote, we can
scarcely exceed the date of forty centuries f.

Herodotus, the earliest profane writer whose works are left to us,
lived two thousand three hundred years ago{. The earliest histo-
rians before him, whom he consulted, were only a hundred years
old §.

We may judge how far they are to be depended on, by their extra-
vagant tales, which are handed down to us in the extracts from Aris-
tzus of Proconnesus, and others.

Before them there were only poets; and the most ancient of those
whose works have been preserved, Homer, the master and perpetual
model of all the rest, has only preceded our own times by two thou-
sand seven hundred, or two thousand eight hundred years.

_ When these early historians mention ancient events, either of their
own nation or of those near them, they only cite oral traditions, and
not public records.

It was long after this, that pretended extracts from Egyptian, Phe-
nician, and Babylonian annals were given. Berosus only wrote during
the reign of Seleucus Nicator, Hieronymus during that of Antiochus
Soter, and Manetho under the government of Ptolemy Philadelphus.
These three were only three centuries earlier than the coming of Jesus
Christ.

Sanchoniatho may be a real or fictitious author; but nothing was
known of him until Philo of Byblos published a translation of his work

* To Cyrus, about 650 years before Christ.

+ To Ninus, about 2348 years before Christ, according to Ctesias and those who
have followed him ; but only to 1250, according to Volney, who follows Herodotus.

~ Herodotus lived B. C. 440.

§ Cadmus, Pherecydes, Aristzus of Proconnesus, Acutilaus, Hecateus of Miletus,
Charon of Lampsacus, &c.—Vide Vessius de Hist. Gree. lib. i, and particularly his
fourth pook,

VOL. I. L

90 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

in the second century after Jesus Christ; and when it was made
known, there was only discovered, as in all other authors of his kind,
a childish theogony, or metaphysics, so eee with allegories, as not
to be distinguishable,

Only one people, the Jews, have preserved prose records of an ear-
lier date than the time of Cyrus.

That part of the Old Testament called the Pentateuch exists, in its
original state, at least since the dispersion of the ten tribes under
Jeroboam; for the Samaritans had it as well as the Jews; and its
antiquity may be confidently reckoned at more than two thousand eight
hundred years.

There is no reason to doubt but that the book of Genesis was com-
posed by Moses himself; which would give it a still farther antiquity
of five hundred years, namely, thirty-three centuries: and it is suffi-
cient to read it to perceive that it was composed partly of fragments
of former works. There is, however, no doubt of its being the most
ancient writing which the world is in possession of.

But this work, and all those written subsequently, however unac-
quainted their authors were with Moses and his people, describe the
nations of the banks of the Mediterranean as newly formed; they
mention them as half savages some centuries after ; moreover, they all
allude to an universal catastrophe, of an irruption of the waters, which
occasioned an almost entire regeneration of the human race; and they
do not go very remotely into antiquity to decide the epoch of this
event.

The texts of the Pentateuch, which place this catastrophe the far-
thest back, do not go more remotely than twenty centuries before
Moses, nor consequently more than five thousand four hundred years
before our time *.

The poetical traditions of the Greeks, the source of all our profane
history which refers to these early periods, have nothing which contra-
dicts the Jewish records ; on the contrary, they agree very harmoniously
as to the epoch which they assign to the Egyptian and Pheenician co-
lonies, which gave to Greece the first germs of civilization: we see,
besides, that about the same period as Israelitish tribes departed from
Egypt to carry into Palestine the sublime doctrine of the unity of God,
other colonies left the same country, to carry into Greece a more
gross religion, at least with respect to exterior form, whatever might
be the secrets which it reserved for the initiated; and others, again,

* The Septuagint, 5345 years; the Samaritan text, 4869; the Hebrew tex t,
4174.

THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. 91

came from Pheenicia, and taught the Greeks the art of writing, and
all that relates to navigation and commerce*.

Certainly we have not had a continuous and connected history since
that time, as we find, very long after these founders of colonies, a
multitude of mythological events and adventures, in which gods and
heroes are introduced ; and these chieftains are connected with real
history by genealogies evidently fictitious +; but what is still more
certain is, that all which preceded their arrival could only have been
preserved in very confused traditions, and could have been only sup-
plied by unfounded inventions, similar to those of the monks of the

middle age concerning the origin of the nations of Europe f.

Thus, not only we should not be astonished that, even in ancient
times, there should have existed many doubts and contradictions on
the epochs of Cecrops, Deucalion, Cadmus, and Danaiis; not only
would it be childish to attach the least importance to any one opinion
concerning the precise dates of Inachus{ or Ogyges§; but, if any-
thing could surprise us, it is that these personages have not been made
from remote antiquity. There must have been some weight in the
received traditions which the inventors of fables could not do away
with. One of the dates assigned to the deluge of Ogyges agrees so
accurately with one that had been mentioned as the period of the de-
luge of Noah, that it is almost impossible but that it must have been
derived from some source by which this latter deluge must have been
intended |].

* We know that chronologists differ many years concerning each of these events ;
but these migrations do not the less form remarkable events, and give a peculiar cha-
racter to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries before Jesus Christ.

In following the calculation of Usserius, Cecrops came from Egypt to Athens about
1556 before Christ ; Deucalion settled on Parnassus about 1548; Cadmus arrived
from Pheenicia at Thebes about 1493 ; Danaiis arrived at Argos about 1485; Dar-
danus was established on the Hellespont about 1449. All these founders of nations
must have been nearly contemporary with Moses, whose migration occurred in 1491.
See, moreover, on the synchronysm of Moses, Danaiis, and Cadmus, Diod. lib. xi,
and Photius, page 1152.

T Every body knows the genealogies of Apollodorus, and the arguments on which
Clavier endeayoured to establish a kind of primitive history of Greece; but when we
read of the genealogies of the Arabians and Tartars, and all that the monkish chro-
nologists have invented for the different European monarchs, and some in particular
—we easily comprehend that the Greek writers must have done for the early time of
their nation what has been done at all other epochs, when criticism had not given its
lights to history.

¢ 1856 or 1823 before Christ, and other dates, have been fixed ; but always about
350 years before the principal Pheenician or Egyptian colonies.

§ The common date of Ogyges, according to Acusilaus and Eusebius, is 1796 years
before Christ ; consequently many years after Inachus.

|| Varro placed the deluge of Ogyges, which he calls the first deluge, 400 years
before Inachus—(@ priore cataclismo quem Ogygium dicunt, ad Inachi regnum)—and

92 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

=

As to Deucalion, whether we consider him as a real or feigned
personage, however lightly we credit the manner of his deluge, as de-
scribed in the Greek poems, and the multifarious details with which it
became successively enriched, it is plain that it is only a tradition of
the great cataclysm, altered and placed by the Hellenians at the epoch
in which they also placed Deucalion, because he was considered as
the founder of their nation; and his history was confounded with that
of all the chieftains of the renewed nations *.

consequently 1600 years before the first Clympiad, which would place it at 2376 years
before Christ ; and the deluge of Noah, according to the Hebrew text, is 2349, only
twenty-seven years difference. This testimony of Varro is substantiated by Censorinus
de Die Natali, cap. xxi. In fact, Censorinus wrote only 238 years after Christ ; and it
appears from Julius Africanus, ap. Euseb. prep. cv, that Acusilaiis, the first author
who placed the deluge in the time of Ogyges, made this prince contemporary of Phoro-
neeus, which would have brought him very near to the first Olympiad. Julius Afri-
canus only makes an interval of 1020 years between the two epochs ; and Censorinus
has a passage confirming this opinion. But some read, in the passage of Varro above
cited from Censorinus, 4rogitium instead of Ogygium. But this would only be an
Erogitian cataclysm, of which who ever heard!

* Homer and Hesiod knew nothing of the deluge of Deucalion, nor that of
Ogyges.

The first author (whose works are extant) who alludes to it, is Pindar (Od. Olymp.
ix). He mentions Deucalion as arriving on Parnassus, and establishing himself in
the city of Pretogenia (jirst birth or production) and re-creating a population with
stones; in a word, he recounts, only applying it to a single nation, the fable after-
wards generalized by Ovid, and applied to the whole of mankind.

The historians who followed Pindar (Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon) do
not mention any deluge, either in the time of Ogyges, or in that of Deucalion, although
they speak of this latter as one of the first kings of the Hellenians.

Plato, in his ‘ Timzeus,’ says but a few words about the deluge, as well as of Deu-
calion and Pyrrha, as a commencement of the account of the great catastrophe, which,
according to the priests of Sais, destroyed the Atalantis ; but in this brief mention,
he speaks of the deluge in the singular number, as if it was one only; and even ex-
pressly says, a little farther on, that the Greeks knew but of one. He places the
name of Deucalion immediately after that of Phoronzus, the first man, without even
adverting to Ogyges: thus, to the extent of his knowledge, it was a general event, a
completely universal deluge, and the only one that occurred. He looked upon it as
identical with that of Ogyges. Aristotle (Meteor. i, 14.) seems to have been the
first who considered this deluge as only a partial inundation, which he placed near
Dodona and the river Acheloitis, but this was the Acheloiis and Dodona of Thessaly.

Apollodorus (Bibl. i, § 7) gives to the deluge of Deucalion all its magnitude and
mythological character: it happened at the epoch of the interval between the age of
brass and the iron age. Deucalion is made the son of the Titan Prometheus, the
fabricator of man; he re-creates the human race with stones; and yet Atlas his
uncle, Phoroneus, who lived before him, and many other antecedent personages,
leave large posterities.

The nearer we come down to more recent authors, the more facts and details do we’
meet with coinciding with the Mosaic account of the deluge. Thus Apollodorus gives
Deucalion achest as his means of safety; Plutarch mentions the pigeons by which he
endeavoured to ascertain the abatement of the waters; and Lucian alludes to the
animals of every species which he had embarked with him, &c.

As to the coincidences of traditions and hypotheses, by which it has recently been
sought to prove that the rupture of the Thracian Bosphorus was the cause of the de-
luge of Deucalion, and even of the opening of the Pillars of Hercules, by causing the
Huxine sea to discharge its waters into the Archipelage, which were, prior to this

THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. 93

Every Greek colony which had preserved any isolated traditions,
began then with their own particular deluge, because each of them
had some recollection of the universal deluge, which had been common
to all; and when, in the sequel, they wished to bring their different
traditions to one common epoch, different events were supposed to
have happened, because dates quite uncertain, and perhaps entirely in-
correct, but each in its own colony regarded as authentic, did not
coincide with one another. Thus, in the same way that the Helle-
nians had a deluge of Deucalion, because they regarded him as their
first parent, the Autochtones of Attica had a deluge of Ogyges, be-
cause it was from him that they derived their origin. The Pelasgi of
Arcadia had that which, according to later authors, compelled Darda-
nus to betake bimself towards the Hellespont*. The isle of Samo-
thracia, one in which a succession of priests was the earliest established
and also a more regular form of worship and connected traditions, had
also its deluge, which was thought the most ancient of all {, and which
they attributed to the rupture of the Bosphorus and Hellespont. They
preserved the idea of some similar event in Asia Minor }, and in Syria §,
and eventually the Greeks gave the name of Deucalion to the whole of
them |].

But none of these traditions places this cataclysm very remote;
none of them is incapable of explanation, either as to its date or any
other circumstances, by the changes which tradition must undergo, to
which no precise date has been assigned by any written document.

The very Remote Antiquity attributed to some Nations is not
historically true.

Those who are desirous of assigning a very remote antiquity to the

event, much higher and more extended than they have since been, it is needless to
occupy ourselves in detailing; since it has heen ascertained by the observations of
M. Olivier, that if the Black Sea had been as high as is supposed, there would have
been many channels for its waters, by hills and plains not so high as the present
shores of the Bosphorus; and by those of M. le Comte Andreossy, that had it fallen
any day by this new opening, in the manner of a cascade, the small quantity of water
which could flow at one time through so confined an opening, would not only be spread
over the vast extent of the Mediterranean, without causing a tide of a few fathoms,
but that the simple, natural inclination necessary for the flowing of the waters, would
have reduced to nothing the excess of height above the banks of Attica.

For other particulars on this subject, see a note that I have published at the head
of the third volume of Ovid, in M. Lemaire’s collection.

* Dion. Halicar. Antiq. Rom. lib. i. cap. 1xi.

+ Diodor. Sicul. lib. v, cap. 47.

* Stephen of Byzantium Iconium ; ‘Zenodotus, Prov. cent. vi, No. 10, and Suidas
Nannacus.

§ Lucian de Dea Syra.

|| Arnobus contra Gent. lib. v, from 158, speaks of a rock in Phrygia, whence he
pretends that Deucalion and Pyrrha took their stones.

94 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

continents and the establishment of nations, are compelled to have re-
course to the Indians, to the Chaldeans, and the Egyptians, three
people who in fact appear the most anciently civilized of the Cauca-
sian race; but three people singularly resembling each other, not only
in temperament, through the climate and the nature of the soil which
they inhabit, but still more so in the political and religious constitu-
tion which they had framed, but whose testimony this very similarity
of constitution must render equally suspicious *.

With all three, an hereditary caste was exclusively charged with the
care of religion, law, and science; with all three, this caste had its
allegorical language and its secret doctrines; to all three was reserved
the privilege of reading and explaining the sacred books in which all
the doctrines had been revealed by the gods themselves.

We may easily divine what history would become in such hands ;
but without any great efforts of reason, we may learn it from the fact
itself, in examining what has occurred amongst the only one of the
three nations now existing, namely, the Indians.

In truth, they have no history remaining. Amidst the voluminous
records of mystic theology, or abstract metaphysics, which the Brah-
mins are possessed of, and which the indefatigable perseverance of
English industry has made known to us, there is nothing which
throws any light over the origin of the nation or the changes of their
society. They even pretend that their religion forbids them to preserve
the remembrance of the present age, the age of misfortune f.

According to the Vedas, the first revealed works, and the founda-
tion of all the Hindoo religion, the literature of this people, like that
of the Greeks, began by two epochs, the ‘ Ramaian’ and the ‘ Mahaba-
rat,’ a thousand times more marvellous than the ‘ Iliad ’ and ‘Odyssey,’
although we perceive in them some outlines of a metaphysical nature,
of the kind usually termed sublime. The other poems, which, with
these two, form the great body of the Pouranas, are only romancesor ver-
sified legends, written at various periods, by various authors, and not
less wild in their fictions than the great works mentioned. It has
been thought that in some of these writings, deeds, or the names of
men somewhat resembling those mentioned by the Greeks and Latins,
may be traced ; and it is principally from the similarity of names that

* This similarity of institutions goes to so great an extent, that it is quite natural
to suppose that they had a common origin. We must not forget that many ancient
authors have thought that the Egyptian institutions came from Ethiopia; and that
Lyncellus, p. 151, positively says that the Ethiopians came from the borders of the
Indus in the time of King Amenophis.

t See Polier, Mythology of the Hindoos, vol. i, pp. 89—91.

THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE, : 95

M. Wilfort has endeavoured to derive from these Pouranas a sort of
concordance with our ancient western chronology,—a concordance
which unfolds, at every line, the hypothetical nature of its foundation ;
and which, besides, can only be admitted by entirely rejecting the
dates given by the Pouranas themselves *.

The lists of kings which the pundits, or Indian doctors, have pre-
tended to compile from these Pouranas, are only plain catalogues
without details, or decked with absurd ones, little short of the Chal-
deans or Egyptians ; or those which were framed for the nations of
the north, by Trithemus and Saxo the grammarian ¢. These lists are
far from coinciding ; none of them supposes either a history, registers,
or records ; their very foundation has probably no other source than
the fictitious work of the poets, from whose compositions they may
have derived their origin. One of the Indian pundits, who supplied M.
Wilfort with these, confessed that he filled up at his pleasure, with ima-
ginary names, the spaces that occurred between celebrated kings } ; and
he added, that his predecessors had done the same. If this be true of
the lists which the English now obtain, why should it not be so with
reference to those which Abou-Fazel has given as extracts from the
annals of Cashmere §, and which, besides, though filled with fiction,
only refer to 4300 years back, of which more than 1200 are filled
with the names of princes, the extent of whose reigus are not deter-
mined.

The very era whence the Indians now calculate their years, begin-
ning fifty-seven years before Christ, and which bears the name of a
prince called Vicramaditjia, or Bickermadyjit, bears it only by a kind of
convention; for we find, according to the synchronisms attributed
to Vicramaditjia, that there were three, and perhaps eight or nine,
princes of this name, who have all had similar legends, and who have
all been at war with a prince called Saliwahanna; and what is more,
they do not accurately know if this fifty-seventh year before Christ be

* See the great work of M. Wilfort on the Chronology of the Kings of Magadha
and the Indian Emperors, and on the epochs of Vicramaditjia (or Bikermadjit) and
Salivahanna. Mem. de Calcutta, tome ix, p. 82. 8vo. edit.

+ Sir William Jones on Hindoo Chronology, Mem. de Calcutta, vol. ii, p. 111,
8vo. ed. French translation, p.164. See also M. Wilfort on the same subject, ibid,
vol. v, p. 241; and the lists which he gives in his work mentioned above, vol. ix, p.
116.

{ Wilfort, Mem. de Calcutta, in Svo. vol. ix, p. 133.

§ Inthe Ayeen-Acbery. vol. ii, p. 138 of the English translation. See also Hee-

ren, Commerce of the Ancients, 1st vol. part ii, page 329.

96 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

that of the birth, the reign, or the death of Vicramaditjia, whose name
it bears *.
Again, the most of the Indian records contradict, by intrinsic and
very obvious characters, the antiquity which these people attribute to
them. Their Vedas or sacred books, revealed, as they say, by Brahma
himself, at the begining of the world, and arranged by Viasa (a name
which only signifies a collector) at the beginning of the present age,
and—if we may judge of them by the calendar which is annexed, and
to which they refer, as well as by the position of the colures which
this calendar points out—may go as far back as 3200 years, which
would closely approach the epoch of Moses +. Perhaps even those
who have faith in the assertion of Megasthenes {, that in his time the
Indians were ignorant of the art of writing ; those who will reflect that
none of the ancients have made mention of the superb temples, the
immense pagodas, those remarkable monuments of the religion of the
Brahmins; those who know that the epochs of their astronomical
tables have been subsequently calculated, and inaccurately done; and
that their treatises on astronomy are modern and antedated, will be
inclined to discredit still farther this pretended antiquity of the Vedas.

Yet in the midst of all the Brahminical fables, there occur points of
coincidence with the historical monuments in the more western nations,
which must astonish us. Thus their mythology determines the suc-
cessive deluges which the surface of the globe has experienced, and
is yet fated to experience; and it is only from a period rather less than
5000 years that they derive that which last occurred §. One of those
revolutions, which they in reality place much more remote, is described
in terms precisely corresponding with the Mosaic account |}.

M. Wilfort even assures us, that, in another event of this mythology,
a person figured very much resembling Deucalion in origin, name, ad-
ventures, and even in the name and adventures of his father 4.

* See Bentley on the Hindoo Astronomical Systems, and their Unison with His-
tory, Mem. de Calcutta. vol. viii, page 243 of the Svo. edition.

+ See the Mem. of Mr. Colebrooke on the Vedas, Mem. de Calcutta, vol. viii, of
the 8vo. edition, p. 493.

}{ Megasthenes, apud Strabo, lib. xv, p. 709. Almel.

§ That which produced the present age or cali-yug (the earth’s age) is made 4927
years or 3102 years before Christ (1825). See Legentil, Voyage to India, v. i, p.
535. Bentley, Mem. de Calcutta, v. 8, ed. 8vo. p. 212. According to the Samari-
tan text, the deluge of Noah was only fifty-nine years more remote.

|| The person named Satyavrata plays the same part.as Noah, and saves himself
with seven couples of holy persons. See Sir William Jones, Mem. de Calcutta, v. i,
p- 230, Svo. ed. and in the Bagvadam (or Bagvata) translated by de Fouehé d’Obson-
ville, p. 212. :

“| Cala Javana, or in the common language, Cal-yun, to whom his partisans may
have given the epithet of diva, deo, or god, having attacked Crishna, the Indian
Apollo, at the head of the northern nations (the Scythians, whence sprung Deucalion,

THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. - 97

It is equally worthy of remark, that in these lists of kings, barren
and doubtful as they are, the Indians place the commencement of
their terrestrial sovereigns (those of the race of the sun and moon) at
an epoch nearly the same as that which Ctesias, in alist of a precisely
similar kind, makes the commencement of his kings of Assyria, about
4000 years before the present time *.

This wretched state of historical knowledge is owing to the subjec-
tion of the people to an hereditary priesthood, who enforced a worship
monstrous in its external form, and cruel in most of its precepts, and
who alone had the privilege of writing, of preserving, and explaining
the-books. Any absurd tale, invented to give fame to a shrine of pil-
grimage, and legends calculated to inspire a deeper homage for their
caste, were of more importance to them than all the facts of authentic
history. With respect to the sciences, they might have cultivated
astronomy, which gave them a reputation as astrologers ; mechanics,
which assisted them in elevating monuments, signs of their power, and
the objects of the most superstitious veneration with the people; geo-
metry, the basis of astronomy as well as of mechanics, and an import-
ant auxiliary to agriculture, in those vast alluvial plains which could
only be made salutary and fruitful by means of numerous canals; they
might encourage the mechanical or chemical arts which nourish their
commerce, and contributed to their luxury and the splendour of their
temples ; but they would look with dread on history, which would in-
form mankind of their mutual relations.

What we observe in India, we might expect to find in every coun-
try in which a priesthood, constituted like that of the Brahmins,
established in similar countries, assumed a similar control over the
mass of the people. ‘The same causes produce the same results; and
in fact, however we reflect on the fragments of Egyptian and Chaldean
traditions that are left to us, we perceive that they were not more his-
torical than those of the Indians.

according to Lucian) was driven back with fire and water. His father, Garga, was
called also Paramathesa (Prometheus) ; and, according to another legend, was de-
voured by the eagle Garuda. These details were extracted by Wilfort (in his Mem.
on Mount Caucasus, Calcutta Mem. v. 6, 8vo. edit. p. 507) from the sacred drama,
called Hari-Vansa. M.Charles Ritter, in his Vestibule of European History before
Herodotus, concludes that the fable of Deucalion was of foreign derivation, and
brought into Greece with the other legends of that part of the Greek worship which
had come from the north, and which had preceded the Egyptian and Pheenician colo-
nies. But if it be true that the constellations of the Indian sphere have also the
names of Grecian personages ; that we have Andromeda under the name of Antar-
madia, Cepheus under that of Capiia, &c., we may be tempted with M. Wilfort, to
draw a different conclusion. Unfortunately the records adduced by this writer have
been doubted by the learned.

* Bentley, Mem. de Calcutta, v. 8, p. 226, éd. 8vo.—note.

VOL. I. M

98 : ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

To judge of the nature of the chronicles which the Egyptian priests
pretended to possess, it is sufficient to review the extracts which they
have given themselves at different times and to different persons.

Those of Sais, for instance, told Solon about 550 years before
Christ, that Egypt, not being subject to deluges, they had preserved
not only their own annals, but those of other people; that the city of
Athens and that of Sais were both built by Minerva, the former 9000
years before, the other only 8000 ; and to those dates he added the
well-known fable concerning the Atlantes, and respecting the resistance
which the ancient Athenians opposed to their conquests, as well as all
the romantic accounts of the Atlantis *; in which are to be found facts
"and genealogies similar to those of all mythological romances.

A century later, about 450 before Christ, the priests of Memphis
give a different account to Herodotus+. Menes, the first king of
Egypt, as they said, had built Memphis, and confined the Nile with
banks, as if such operations could have been done by the first king of
any country. Since then they had 330 other kings, down to Merris,
who reigned, as they asserted, 900 years before the epoch in which
this statement was made (1350 before Christ).

After these kings came Sesostris, who carried his conquests even to
Colchis { ; and in all, there were to Sethos 341 kings and 341 high
priests,in 841 generations, during 11,340 years ; and in this space, as if
to corroborate their genealogy, these priests asserted that the sun had
risen twice where he sets, without effecting any change in their cli-
mate or the productions of the country; and previously to them no
deity had appeared or reigned in Egypt.

To this improbability, (which, in spite of all the explanations which
have been given, proves so gross an ignorance of astronomy), they add
concerning Sesostris, Phero, Helenus, and Rhampsinitus, the kings
who built the pyramids, and an Ethiopian conqueror, named Sallaliox:
tales equally preposterous. 4

The Theban priests did better ; they pointed out to Herodotus, and
had previously shown to Hecateus, 345 wooden colossal figures,
representing 345 high priests, who had succeeded father to son, all
men, all born one from the other, but who had been preceded by gods §.

* See Plato’s Timeeus and Critias.

+ Euterpe, chap. xcix. et seq.
+ Herodotus thought that he had detected similarities of figure and colour between

ans Colchians; but it is infinitely more probable that the black Colchians, of whom
he speaks, were an Indian colony attracted by the commerce anciently established
between India and Europe by the Oxus, the Caspian, and the Phasis. See Ritter,
Vestibule, chap. i.

§ Euterpe, chap. cxliii.

HE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. 99

Other Egyptians told him that they had correct registers, not only
of the reign of men, but of that of the gods. They reckoned 17,000
years from Hercules to Amasis, and 15,000 from Bacchus. - Pan was
even earlier than Hercules *.

These people evidently mistook for history some allegory relative to
pantheistic metaphysics, which formed, although they knew it not, the
basis of their mythology.

It is only from Sethos that Herodotus begins a history at all credi-
ble; and it is important to note that this history begins with a fact
agreeing with the Hebrew annals, namely, the destruction of the army
of Sennacherib, king of Assyria + ; and this agreement continues under
Necho { and under Hophra or Apries.

Two centuries after Herodotus (about 260 years before Christ)
Ptolemy Philadelphus, a prince of a foreign race, was desirous of know-
ing the history of a country which circumstances had called him to
govern. A priest called Manetho undertook to write it for him. It
was not from records or archives that he pretended to have drawn his
information, but from the sacred book of Agathodzemon, son of the se-
cond Hermes, and father of Tat, who had copied it upon pillars or
columns, erected before the deluge by Tat, or the first Hermes in the
Seriadic land §; and this second Hermes, this Agathodzmon, this
Tat, are personages of whom no one had ever before spoken, nor even
of this Seriadic land, nor of these columns. This deluge is itself a fact
entirely unknown to the Egyptians of early times, and of which Mane-
tho points out nothing in what remains to us of his dynasties.

The production resembles the source ; not only is the whole filled
with absurdities, but they are peculiar absurdities, and such as it is
impossible to reconcile with those which the more ancient priests had
related to Solon and Herodotus.

Vulcan is the first of the divine kings. He reigns 9000 years; the
gods and demi-gods reign 1985 years. Neither the names, nor the
successions, nor the dates of Manetho, coincide with what was pub-
lished before or after him; and his accounts must have been as obscure
and confused in themselves as they were with the statements of other
authors, if we may credit the extracts of Josephus, Julius Africanus,
and Eusebius. They do not even agree about the total of years of his

* Ibid. exliv.

+ Euterpe, cxli.

< Ibid. clix, and in the 4th book of Kings, chap. xix., or in the 2nd of Paral.
chap. Xxxii.

§ Syneell, p. 40.
mM 2

100 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

human knigs. According to Julius Africanus, they reached 5110,
and, according to Eusebius, to 4723 ; according to Syncellus, to 3555.
We may believe that the difference of names and figures was made by
copyists; but Josephus cites at length a passage, the details of which
are manifestly contradictory to the extracts of his successors.

A record, called the Antique *, and which some call anterior and
others posterior to Manetho, gives other calculations: the whole du-
ration of the kings is 36,525 years, of which the sun reigned 30,000,
the other gods 3,984, the demi-gods 217, only leaving for the human
race 2,339 years; which gives only 113 generations, instead of the
340 of Herodotus. The astronomer Eratosthenes, a learned man of an
order different from that of Manetho, discovered and published under
Ptolomceus Evergetes, about 240 years before Christ, a particular list
of thirty-eight kings of Thebes, beginning with Menes, and continuing
for 1024 years. Of this we have an extract copied by Syncellus in
Apollodorus f+. Scarcely any of the names which are there correspond
with the other list.

Diodorus went to Egypt under Ptolomceus Auletes, about sixty years
before Christ, and consequently two centuries after Manetho, and four
after Herodotus. He also gleaned from the priests themselves the
history of the country, and he obtained it again in an entirely new
form f.

It was not now Menes who built Memphis, but Uchoreus; and long
before his time Busiris II. had built Thebes. The eighth ancestor of
Uchoreus, Osymandyas, obtained possession of Bactria, and subdued
revolts there. Long afterwards, Sesostris made still more extended
conquests; he reached to the Ganges, and returned thence through
Scythia and the Tanais. Unfortunately these names of kings are un-
known to all previous historians, and no people that they had conquered
preserved the least remembrance of them. As to the gods and heroes,
according to Diodorus, they reigned 18,000 years, and the human
sovereigns 15.000; four hundred and seventy were Egyptians, four
Ethiopians, without counting Persians or Macedonians, The tales
with which the whole are intermingled do not otherwise yield in
childishness to those of Herodotus.

In the eighteenth year of Christ, Germanicus, nephew of Tiberius,
attracted by a desire of knowing the antiquities of this celebrated

* Syncell, p. 51.
+ Ibid. p. 91, et seq.
+ Diodorus Sic. lib. i. sect. 2.

THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. 101

country, went to Egypt, at the risk of displeasing a prince as suspi-
cious as his uncle. He ascended the Nile as far as Thebes. It was
not of Sesostris or Osmandyas of whom the priests told him as of a
conqueror, but of Rhameses, who with an army of 700,000 men had
invaded Libya, Ethiopia, Medea, Persia, Bactria, Scythia, Asia Minor,
and Syria *.

Finally, in the famous article of Pliny on the Obelisks}, we find
names of kings, mentioned nowhere else ; Sothies, Mnevis,~Zmarreus,
Eraphius, Mestires, or Semenpserteus, cotemporary of Pythagoras, &c.
A Ramises, who may be the same as Rhameses, is there made cotem-
porary with the siege of Troy.

I am aware that it is attempted to reconcile these lists, by supposing
that the kings have had other names. To me, considering not only
the contradiction of these different accounts, but particularly the mix-
ture of facts attested by vast monuments and childish extravagancies,
it seems much more natural to conclude that the Egyptian priests had
no history; that inferior even to the Indians, they had not congruous
and connected fables ; that they only kept lists, more or less defective,
of their kings, and some recollection of the chief amongst them, of
those in particular who had taken care to inscribe their names on their
temples and other large monuments which adorned the country; but
these recollections were confused, and were only founded on the tradi-
ditional explanations which they gave to the representations painted
or engraved on their monuments ; explanations founded only on the
hieroglyphics, conceived like these which have been transmitted to us
in any general terms {, and which, passing from mouth to mouth, were
altered as to details according to the fancy of those who communicated
them to strangers; and consequently it is impossible to rest any pro-
position relative to the antiquity of the present continents on the frag-
ments of these traditions, so incomplete even in their own times, and
rendered utterly unintelligible by the pens of those who have handed
them down to us.

If this assertion needed farther proof, it might be found in the list
of the sacred work of Hermes, which the Egyptian priests carried in

* Tacit. Annal. lib. 2, chap. lx.

N.B. According to the interpretation of Ammianus, lib. xvii. ener vi. by the
hieroglyphics of the obelisk of Thebes now at Rome in the place of St. John Lateran,
it appears that a Rhamestes was styled in the eastern manner, ‘lord of the habita-
ble world,’’ and that the inscription given to Germanicus was only a commentary on
this.

+ Pliny, lib, xxxvi.c. 8, 9, 10, 11.

+ That of Rhamestes in Ammian. loc. cit.

102 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

their solemn procession. Clemens Alexandrinus * enumerates them
in number forty-two; and there is not amongst them, as with the
Brahmins, one epic, or one book which has the pretension of being a
narrative, or of fixing in any way any great action or any event.

The learned researches of M. Champollion, junior, and his aston:
ishing discoveries concerning the language of hieroglyphics +, confirm
rather than destroy these surmises. This ingenious antiquary has
read in a series of hieroglyphical pictures of the temple of Abydos {
the preenomina of a certain number of kings placed in order, one after
the other; and a portion of these preenomina (the ten last) being found
on many other monuments, accompanied with proper names, he con-
cludes that they are those of kings, who bore those proper names,
which has given him nearly the same kings, and in the same order,
as those of which Manetho composed his eighteenth dynasty, that
which drove out the pastoral kings or shepherds. The concordance,
however, is not complete : in the painting of Abydos, six of the names
found in Manetho’s list are wanting; there are others which do not
resemble them ; and, unfortunately, there is a break before the most
remarkable of all—the Rhameses, who appears the same as the king
represented on so many of the finest monuments, with the attributes
of a great conqueror. Itshould be, according to M. Champollion in
Manetho’s list, the Sethos, chief of the nineteenth dynasty, who, in
fact, is pointed out as potent in ships and horsemen, and as having
carried his arms into Cyprus, Media and Persia. M.Champollion
thinks, with Marsham and many others, that it is Rhameses or this
Sethos, who is the Sesostris or Sesoosis of the Greeks; and this sup-
position is probable, in the sense that the representations of the victo-
ries of Rhameses, obtained probably over the wandering tribes near
Egypt, or, at farthest, over Scythia, have given rise to the fabulous
tales of the vast conquests, attributed by some confusion to a Sesos-
tris; but in Manetho it is in the twelfth dynasty, and not in the
eighteenth, which has a prince named Sesostris, marked as the con-
queror of Asia and Thrace §. Marsham pretends that this twelfth ||
dynasty and the eighteenth form only one. Manetho could not then
have comprehended the lists which he copied. In fact, if we entirely
receive both the historical truth of this bas-relief of Abydos and its

* Stromat. lib. vi. p. 633.

+ See the ‘ Précis du Syst0me Heroglyphique des anciens Egyptiens,’ par M. Cham-
pollion le jeune, page 245 ; and his ‘ Lettre 4 M. le Duc de Blacas,’ p. 15, et seq.

+ This important bas-relief is engraved in the ‘ Voyage 1 Meroé,’ by M. Caillaud,
v. 2, plate xxxii.

§ syneell. p. 59. || Canon. p. 353.

THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. 103

accordance, either with the portion of the lists of Manetho which
appears to correspond with it, or with the other hieroglyphical inscrip-
tion, this consequence would arise, that the pretended eighteenth dy-
nasty, the first with which the ancient chronologists can make any
agreement, is also the first which has left out on the monuments any
trace of its existence. Manetho may have consulted this and similar
documents ; but it is not the less apparent that a list, a series of
names or of portraits, which everywhere occur, is very far from being
history.

May we not then assume of the inhabitants of the valleys of the
Euphrates and the Tigris, what we have proved and known with re-
gard to the Indians, and is made so probable respecting the people of
the valley of the Nile? Hstablished as the Indians * and Egyptians
are, on a fine commercial situation—in extensive plains in which they
have been compelled to intersect with various canals—instructed like
them by an hereditary priesthood, the pretended depositaries of sacred
books, the privileged possessors of the sciences, astrologers; construc-
tors of pyramids and other vast monuments {—should they not also
have a mutual resemblance in other essential points? May not their
history be similarly reduced to mere legends? I venture to say, that
it is not only probable, but that it is demonstrated by fact.

Neither Moses nor Homer make any mention of a great kingdom in
Upper Asia. Herodotus { only assigns to the supremacy of the Assy-
rians five hundred and twenty years of duration, and makes its origin
about eight centuries before his own time. After visiting Babylon,
and having consulted the priests, he did not even learn the name of
Ninus, as king of the Assyrians, and only mentions him as the father
of Asron §, first Lydian king of the race of the Heraclidee. Neverthe-
less he makes him son of Belus, so much confusion had then occurred
in the oral traditions. If he speaks of Semiramis as one of the queens
who has left great monuments in Babylon, he only places her seven
generations before Cyrus.

Hellanicus, cotemporary with Herodotus, far from allowing that
Semiramis built anything at Babylon, attributes the founding of that
city to || Chaldzeus, fourteenth in order from Ninus.

* Ail the ancient mythology of the Brahmins relates to the plains through which
the Ganges flows, and it is evidently there that their first establishments were
formed.

+ The descriptions of the ancient Chaldean monuments are very similar to those
of the Indians and Egyptians; but these monuments are not similarly preserved, be-
eause they were only made of sun-dried bricks.

+ Clio, cap. xev. § Clio, cap. vii.

|| Stephen of Byzantium, at the word Chaldei.

104 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

Berosus, a Babylonian and a priest, who wrote scarcely one hundred
and twenty years after Herodotus, gives an alarming antiquity to Ba-
bylon ; but it is to Nebuchadnezzar, a prince of comparatively recent
date, that he attributes the principal monuments *.

As far as regards Cyrus, that remarkable prince, and whose history
should be so well-known, so common, Herodotus, who only lived a
century after him, confesses that there were three different opinions;
and, in fact, sixty years later, Xenophon gives us a biography of this
prince entirely different from that of Herodotus.

Ctesias, nearly cotemporary with Xenophon, pretends to ae drawn
from the archives of the Medes, a chronology which renders the origin
of the Assyrian monarchy more remote by eight hundred years, placmg
at the head of its kings the same Ninus, the son of Belus, whom He-
rodotus had made one of the Heraclide ; and at the same time he
attributes to Ninus and Semiramis, conquests towards the west, of an
extent absolutely incompatible with the Jewish and Egyptian history
of this period f.

According to Megasthenes, it was Nebuchadnezzar who made these
incredible conquests. He carried them through Libya to Spain ¢. We
see that, from the time of Alexander, Nebuchadnezzar had entirely
usurped the reputation which Semiramis had had from the time of
Artaxerxes. But, we must certainly suppose, that Semiramis and
Nebuchadnezzar had conquered Ethiopia and Libya, nearly in the same
manner as the Egyptians attributed the conquest ef India and Bactria
to Sesostris or Osymandias.

It would avail us nothing, if we now entered into an examination
of the different traditions of Sardanapulus, in which a celebrated
learned man has imagined that he has discerned proof of the existence
of three princes of that name, all victims of similar misfortunes § ; and
in the same way, another learned man finds in the Indies, at least
three Vicramaditjia, equally the heroes of precisely similar adven-
tures.

It was doubtlessly from the disagreement of all these narratives,
that Strabo was induced to say that the authority of Herodotus and
Ctesias was not equal to that of Hesiod or Homer |]. Ctesias has not
been more fortunate in copyists than Manetho; and it is now very

* Josephus (contra App.) lib. i, cap. xix.

+ Diod. Sicul. lib. 2.

}~ Josephus (contra App.) lib. i, chap. vi, and Strabo, lib. x’, p. 687.

§ See the Memoir of Freret, on the History of the Assyrians, in the Memoirs of
the Academy of Belles Lettres, vol. v.

\| Strabo, lib. xi, p. 507.

THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. 105

difficult to reconcile the extracts given us from his works by Diodorus,
Eusebius and the Syncellus.

_If so great a state of uncertainty existed in the fifth century before
Christ, how can we imagine that Berosus could clear them up in the
third? And can we give more credence to 430,000 years which he
puts before the deluge—to 35,000 years which he places between the
deluge and Semiramis—than in records of 150,000 years which he
boasts of having consulted * ?

Mention has been made of works raised in distant provinces, and
which bore the name of Semiramis ; they pretend also to have seen in
Asia Minor and in Thrace columns erected by Sesostris +. But, as in
Persia at the present day, the ancient monuments, perhaps even some
of these, bear the name of Roustan; and in Egypt or Arabia they have
those of Joseph or Solomon ; a custom appertaining to the Orientalists
of all ages, and, most probably, to all ignorant nations. The peasan-
try of our country call all ancient Roman entrenchments the camp of
Ceesar.

In a word, the more I reflect on the subject, the more I am persuaded
that there was no more an ancient history of Babylon or Ecbatana than
of Egypt or the Indies; and instead of explaining mythology histori-
cally, as Evhemere or Bannier, it is my opinion that a great portion of
history should be considered as mythology.

It is only from the epoch commonly called that of the second king-
dom of Assyria, that the history of the Assyrians and Chaldeans be-
gins to be at all clear; at the same time in which that of the Egyptians
also becomes intelligible ; when the kings of Ninevah, Babylon and
Egypt, began to meet and fight on the theatre of Syria and Palestine.

It appears, however, that the writers of these countries, or those
who had consulted its traditions, Berosus, Hieronymus, and Nicholas
de Damas, agree in mentioning a deluge. Berosus even describes it
with circumstances so similar to that of Genesis, which it is scarcely
possible but that he must have derived his information from the same
sources, although he makes its epoch many centuries earlier; that is,
if we may judge from the confused extracts which Josephus, Eusebius
and Syncellus, have preserved of his writings. But we must remark
—and with this observation we shall terminate our mention of the

* Syncellus, p. 38 and 39.

Tt N.B. It is remarkable, that Herodotus says nothing of having seen any monu-
ments of Sesostris, but in Palestine, and only mentions those in Ionia from hearsay,
adding, that Sesostris i is not named in the inscriptions, and that those who have meen
these monuments attribute them to Memnon.—Euterpe, chap. evi.

106 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

Babylonians—that these numerous ages, and this long list of kings,
placed between the deluge and Semiramis, is a new thing, entirely
originating from Berosus, and of which Ctesias, and those who followed
him, had not the least idea, and which has not even been adopted by
any profane author after Berosus. Justin and Velleius considered
Ninus as the first of the conquerors, and those who, against all proba-
bility, place him highest, only make him forty centuries anterior to the
present time *.

The Armenian writers of the middle age agree very nearly with one
of the texts of Genesis, when they date the deluge as 4916 years ante-
rior to their own time; and it might be imagined, that having col-
lected the old traditions, and perhaps extracted the old chronicles of
their country, they form an additional authority in favour of the new-
ness of nations. But when we reflect, that their historical literature
is only dated from the fifth century, and that they were acquainted
with Eusebius, we may understand that they accommodated themselves
to his chronology and that of the Bible. Moses of Chorene expressly
professes to have followed the Greeks, and we may perceive that his
ancient history is formed on that of Ctesias f.

It is, however, certain, that the tradition of the deluge existed in
Armenia, even before the conversion of the inhabitants to Christianity ;
and the city, which according to Josephus, was called the Place of the
Descent, still exists, at the foot of mount Ararat, and bears the name
of Nachidchevan, which has the same meaning {

By Armenians, we mean the Arabs, Persians, Turks, Mongelians
and Abyssians, of the present day. Their ancient books, if they
ever had any, exist no longer. They have no other ancient history
than that which they have recently made, and which they modelled on
the Bible. Thus what they,say of the deluge is borrowed from Gene-
sis, and adds no testimony to that book.

It is curious to learn the opinion of the ancient Persians on this
subject, before it was modified by Christian and Mahometan creeds.
We find it deposited in their Boundehesh or Cosmogony, a work of
the prince of the Sassinides, but evidently extracted or translated from
more ancient works, and which Anguetil du Perron found among the
Parsees of India. The whole duration of the world it states to be
only 12,000 years, therefore it cannot yet be very old. The appear-

* Justin, lib. 1, c. 1; Velleius Paterculus, lib. 1, c. vii.»
+ See Moses Chorenensis. Hist. Armen. lib. 1, ¢. 1.
} See the Preface of the two Whistons on Moses of Chorene, p. 4.

THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. 107

ance of the Cayoumortz (the bull-man, the first man,) is preceded by
the creation of a great water *.

For the rest, it would be useless to ask from the Parsees a serious
history, as from the other oriental nations. The Magi have left no
more than the Brahmins or Chaldeans, I ask no other proof than the
uncertainties concerning the epoch of Zoroaster. It is even pretended,
that the little history that they might have had which related to
the Achemenides, the successors of Cyrus to the time of Alexander ,
has been expressly altered, and by the official command of one of the
kings Sossanides f.

To discover the authentic dates of the commencement of empires,
and traces of the universal deluge (grand cataclisme) we must go be-
yond the vast deserts of Tartary. Towards the east and north is another
race, whose institutions and modes of life differ from ours as much as
their formation and temperament. ‘Their language is monosyllable,—
their writing is arbitrary hieroglyphics,—they have only a political
morality, without religion, for the superstitions of Fo were brought to
them from the Indians. Their yellow complexion, projecting cheek-
bones, their narrow and oblique eyes, and scanty beard, render them
so different from us, that we are tempted to believe that their ancestors
and ours escaped at the great catastrophe by different sides; but, how-
ever that may be, they date their deluge from nearly the same epoch
as our own.

The most ancient book of the Chinese, is called the Chou-king f,
which is said to have been compiled by Confucius, from the fragments
of former works, about 2255 years ago. 'T'wo centuries later, they say,
was the persecution of letters, and the destruction of the books, under
the emperor Chi-Hoangti, who wanted to destroy the traces of the
feudal government, established under a dynasty previous to his own.
Forty years afterwards, under the dynasty which had overthrown that
to which Chi-Hoangti belonged, a part of the Chou-king was restored
from memory by an old sage, and another was found in a tomb; but
nearly half of it was utterly lost. But this book, the most authentic
of China, begins the history of this country with Yao, an emperor so
named, who it represents to us as occupied in making the waters pass
away, which being raised as high as heaven, were still laving the feet of
the loftiest mountains, covering the hills that were less elevated, and ren-

* Zendavesta d’Anquetil, v. 2, p. 354. ae
+ Mazoudi ap. Sacy. Manuscripts of the king’s library, vol. vill, p. 161.
+ See the preface of the edition of Chou-king, by M: de Guignes.

108 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

dered the plains impassable.* The date of Yao is, by some, fixed
4163 years before the present time ; according to others, at 3943 years.
The variety of opinions on this epoch extends even to 284 years.

Some pages further on we find Yu, a minister and engineer, re-es-
tablishing the course of the waters, forming dykes, digging canals,
and regulating the taxes of every province in China, that is to say,
in an empire of six hundred leagues in every direction. The impos-
sibility of such operations, after such events, shows that the whole is
but a moral or political romance.f

More modern historians have added a series of emperors before
Yao, but with a great many fabulous circumstances, without venturing
to assign fixed dates to them, varying incessantly one with the
other, even in number and names, and not being approved of by many
of theircountrymen. Fouhi, with his serpent’s body, his bull’s head,
and tortoise’s teeth, and his successors not less monstrous, are as ab-
surd, and have had no more reality than Enceladus and Briareus.

Isit possible that mere chance gave a result so striking as to make
the traditional origin of the Assyrian, Indian, and Chinese monarch-
ies agree in being as remote as 4000 years back? Would the ideas of
nations, who have had so little communication with each other, whose
language, religion, and laws, have nothing in common, agree on this
point, if they were not founded on truth?

We will not ask for precise dates from the Americans, who had no
real writing, and whose most ancient traditions go no further back
than to some few centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards; and
yet we still imagine that we can detect traces of the deluge in their
rough hieroglyphics. They have their Noah, or their Deucalion, like
the Indians, the Babylonians, and the Greeks.t

The negroes, the most degraded of human beings, whose forms are
the nearest to those of brutes, and whose intellect has nowhere ex-
panded so greatly as to attain a regular government, nor to the least
semblance of connected information, have preserved no records, no
traditions. ‘They cannot then afford us any information coneerning
our inquiry, although all their characters clearly show that they es-
caped from the great catastrophe by some other point than the Cauca-
sian and Altaic races, from whom they were probably separated long
before this catastrophe happened.

* Chou-King. French translation, p. 9.

+ It is the Yu-King, or chap. 1, of the second part of the Chou-King, pp, 43—60.

{ See the admirable and. splendid work of M. de Humboldt, on the Mountains
of Mexico. :

THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE, 109

But, it is said, if the ancient races have not left us any history, their
long existence as nations is not the less attested by the progress which
they made in astronomy ; by observations which are easily dated, and
even long by the monuments still existing and which themselves bear
their dates.

Thus the length of the year, such as the Egyptians are supposed to
have determined it, according to the heliacal rising of Sirius, is cor-
rect for a period comprised between the year 3000 and the year 1000
before Christ, a period to which the traditions of their conquests, and
the great prosperity of their empire, also have reference. This accuracy
proves to what an exact pitch they had carried their observations, and
makes it evident that they had devoted themselves for a long time to
such studies.

To appreciate this reasoning, it is necessary that we enter into some
explanation. i

The solstice is that moment of the year, at which the rising of the
Nile begins, and which the Egyptians must have observed with very
great attention. Having in the beginning formed a civil or sacred
year, of exactly three hundred and sixty-five days, from imperfect
observations, they would preserve it from superstitious motives, even
after they had discovered that it did not coincide with the natural or
tropical year, and that the seasons did not revert on the same days.*
However, it was the tropical year which it most behoved them to mark
for directions in their agricultural operations, They would then seek
in the heavens for some apparent sign of its return, and they imagined
that they had found it when the sun returned to the same position,
with relation to a certain remarkable star. Thus they applied them-
selves, like nearly all nations, who begin a similar enquiry, to the exa-
mination of the heliacal rising and setting of the stars. We know
that they particularly fixed on the heliacal rising of Sirius; at first,
doubtless, because of the splendour of this star; and above all be-
cause in ancient times this rising of Sirius nearly coinciding with the
solstice, announcing the inundation, was to them a phenomenon of the
most important nature. Hence it was that Sirius, under the name of
Sothis, played a prominent part in all their mythology, and their reli-
gious rites. Supposing then that the recurrence of the heliacal rising
of Sirius and the tropical year were of the same duration, and believ-
ing that they had at length discovered that this duration was three

* Geminus, a contemporary with Cicero, explains these notions at length. See
M. Halma’s edition, at the end of Ptolomzus, p. 43.

110 _ ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

hundred and sixty-five days and a quarter, they imagined a period,
after which the tropical year, the ancient year, the year of the three
hundred and sixty-five days only, would revert to the same day; a pe-
riod which, according to these incorrect data, was necessarily 1461
sacred years, and 1460 of those perfected years, to which they gave
the name of the years of Sirius.

They took as the point of departure of this period, which they
called the sothaic or great year, a civil year; the first day of which was
or had been also that of the soliacal rising of Sirius; and we learn
from the positive testimony of Censorinus, that one of these great
years terminated in the year 138 before Christ.* Consequently it be-
gan 1322 years before Christ, and that which preceded it, 2782 years
previously. In fact, from calculations of M. Ideler, we learn that
Sirius rose heliacally on the 20th July, in the Julian year 139, a day
which corresponds to the first of Thot, or the first day of the sacred
Egyptian year.}

But not only the sun’s position, with relation to the stars of the
ecliptic or the sidereal year, is not the same as the tropical year,
because of the precision of the equinoxes. The heliacal year of
a star, or the period of its heliacal rising, especially when it is
distant from the eliptic, differs also from the sidereal year, and differs
variously, according to their latitudes in the places of observa-
tion, Yet what is singular enough, and what Bainbridge,t and
father Petau§ have remarked,|| is, that it happens by a remarkable
concurrence in the positions, that in the latitude of Upper Egypt, at
a certain epoch, and during a certain number of centuries, the year
of Sirius, was really within very little of three hundred and sixty-five
days and a quarter; so that the heliacal of this star returned, in fact,
to the same day of the Julian year, on the 20th of July, in 1322 years
before, and 138 after Christ.4

* All this system is developed by Censorinus, de Die Natali, cap, xviii. and xxi.

+ Ideler. Hist. Researches on the Astronomical Observations of the Ancients.
Halma’s translation at the end of his Canon of Ptolameus, p. 32, et. seq.

+ Bainbridge, Canicul.

§ Petau, Var. Diss. lib. v, c. vi, p. 108.

|| See La Nauze, on the Egyptian year. Acad. de Bell. Let. v. xiv. p. 346, and
the Memoir of Fourier, in the great work on Egypt, Mem. v. i, p. 803.

§ Petau, loc. cit. M. Ideler affirms that this coincidence of the heliacal rising of
Sirius, tooh place also 2782 years before Christ, (Rech. Hist. in the Ptolemzus of.
M. Halma, v. iv, p. 37.) But with respect to the Julian year, 1498 after Christ,
which is also the last of a great year, father Petau and M. Ideler differ. The latter
places the heliacal rising of Sirius, on the 22nd of July, the former on the 19th of
August. : -

THE SURFACE CF THE G!OBE. ill

From this positive coincidence, at a period so remote, M. Fourier,
who has determined all these coincidences by great labour and new
calculations, concludes, that since the length of the year of Sirius was
so perfectly known to the Egyptians, they mnst have determined it by
observations made during a long series of years, and with much ex-
actness; observations as remote as 2500 years before our era, and
could not have been made either much before or much after this inter-
val of time.*

Certainly, this result would be very striking if the length of the
year of Sirius had been directly decided by observations made on
Sirius itself. But experimental astronomers affirm, that it is impossible
that the heliacal rising of a star could serve as the basis of these exact
observations on such a subject, particularly in a climate where the cir-
cumference of the horizon is always so much loaded with vapours, that, on
Jine nights, stars of the second and third magnitude are never seen withia
a few degrees of the edge of the horizon, and that the sun itself, at its
rising and setting is entirely obscured.{ ‘They maintain, that if the
length of the year had not been discovered by some other means, they
would have been mistaken in one or two days.{ They do not doubt
then that this duration of three hundred and sixty-five days and a quar-
ter is that of the tropical year, inaccurately determined by the observa
of the shadow, or by that of the point where the sun rose daily, and
ignorantly identified with the heliacal year of Sirius; so that it would
be mere chance which determined with so much accuracy the duration
of the latter for the epoch in question.§$

We shall also, perhaps, conclude, that men capable of such accurate
observations, and who made them for so long a period, would not have
assigned so much importance as to worship him; for they would have
seen that the coincidence of his rising with the tropical year and the
inundation of the Nile are only temporary, and only took place in a
determinate latitude. In fact, according to the calculations of M.
Ideler, 2782 years before Christ, Sirius appeared in Upper Egypt, the
second day after the solstice; in 1322, the thirteenth; and in one
hundred and thirty-nine after Christ, the twenty-sixth. ||

Zand

* See the great work on Egypt. Antiq. Mem. v. 1, p. 803; the ingenious Me-
moir of M. Fourier, entitled ‘ Recherches sur les Sciences et le Gouvernment de
l’Egypte.’

+ These are the words of the late M. Nouet, astronomer to the expedition to
Egypt. See Volney’s ‘ Recherches Nouvelles sur |’ Histoire Ancienne,’ v. iii.

~ Delambre Abrégé d’Astronomie, p. 217, and in his note on the Paranatellons.
He de ’Astr. du Moyen Age, p. 52.

§ Delambre’s Report on M. de Paravey’s Memoir concerning the Sphere, in the
8th vol. of the New Annals of Voyages.

|| Ideler loe. cit. p. 38.

112 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

At the present day it does not rise heliacally till more than a month
after the solstice. The Egyptians would have had a decided prefer-
ence in finding an epoch which would afford a coincidence between
the commencement of the sacred year, with that of the actual tropical
year; and then they would discover that their great period should be
1508 sacred years, and not 1461.* We certainly do not find any
trace of this period of 1508 years in antiquity.

Can we, generally speaking, defend ourselves with the idea that if
the Egyptians had such long series of observations, and exact observ-
ations, their disciple Eudoxus, who studied amongst them for thirteen
years, would have carried a more perfect system of astronomy, maps
of the heavens less inaccurate, and even congruous in their different
parts ?T

How was it that the precession of the equinoxes was not known to
the Greeks but from the works of Hipparchus, if it had been inserted
in the registers of the Egyptians, and written in such manifest charac-
ters on the ceilings of their temples ?

How is it that Ptolemzus, who wrote in Egypt, did not deign to
make use of any of the observations of the Egyptians? t

Besides, Herodotus, who dwelt with them so long, says nothing of
these six hours which they added to the sacred year, nor of that great
sothaic period which resulted from it. He, on the contrary, positively
says, that the Egyptians making their years three hundred and sixty-
five days, the seasons return at the same pericds; so that at his time
there was no appearance that they had as yet suspected the necessity
of this quarter of a day§. Thales, who had visited the priests of
Egypt less than a century before Herodotus, in like manner did not
make known to his fellow-countrymen any other than the year of three
hundred and sixty-five days only;|| and, if we reflect that the colo-
nies that went from Egypt, fourteen or fifteen centuries before Christ,
the Jews and the Athenians carried with them the lunar year; we
may perhaps judge that the year of three hundred and sixty-five days
itself did not exist in Egypt at a period so remote.

I know that Macrobius§] attributes a solar year of three hundred
and sixty-five days and a quarter to the Egyptians. But this author,
comparatively modern, and who lived long after the fixed year of Alex-

* See Laplace, Systéme du Monde, 3d. edit. p. 17, and Annuaire of 1818.

+ See M. Delambre, on the inaccuracy of the determination of the Sphere, by
Eudoxus, in the 1st vol. of his History of Ancient Astronomy, p. 120, et. seq.

} See M. Delambre’s Preliminary Discourse on the History of the Astronomy of
the Middle Age, p. 8, et seq.

§ Euterpe, ch. iv.

|| Diog. Laert. lib 1, in Thalet

4] Saturnal, lib. 1, ch. xy.

THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. 113

andria, may have confounded the epochs. Diodorus* and Strabot
only give a similar year to the Thebans; they do not say that it was
generally adopted, and they lived long after Herodotus.

Thus the sothaic year, the great year, may have been but a modern
invention, since it results from a comparison of the civil year with
this pretended heliac year of Sirius; and that accounts for its not
being spoken of before the writings of the second and third century
after Christ {, and that Syncellus alone, in the ninth century, seems to
quote Manetho, as having mentioned it.

Whatever may be said on the subject, we have the same ideas of the
astronomical science of the Chaldeans. _'That a people inhabiting vast
plains, under a sky always serene, may have been led to observe the
course of the stars even from the times when they were wandering
tribes, and when the stars alone could guide them at night, is natural.
But since what period did they become astronomers, and how far have
they carried the science of astronomy?’ ‘That is the question. It is
agreed that Callisthenes sent Aristotle observations made by them,
which went as far back as 2200 years before Christ. But this is stated
only by Simplicius §, according to the authority of Porphyry, and six
hundred years after Aristotle. Aristotle himself makes no mention of
it; no accredited astronomer speaks of it. Ptolemzus relates and
makes use of ten observations on eclipses really made by the Chal-
deans ; but it only goes back to Nebuchadnezzar (721 years before
Christ); they are incorrect; the time is only expressed in hours and
half hours, and the obscuration only in half or quarter diameters.
However, as they had certain dates, the Chaldeans must have had
some knowledge of the accurate length of the year, and some method
of measuring time. They appear to have known the period of eigh-
teen years, which brings back the eclipses of the moon in the same
order, and which the mere inspection of their registers would have
informed them quickly ; but it is certain that they neither knew how
to explain nor foretel the eclipses of the sun.

Cassini and Bailey, having misunderstood a passage in Josephus, have
asserted that they had discovered in it a luni-solar period of six hun-
dred years, which must have been known to the early patriarchs |.

* Bibl. lib. 1, p. 46. tT Geogr. p. 102.
3 See the admirable dissertation of M. Biot, on the probable newness of this

peed in his researches on many points of Byernttare Astronomy, p. 148, et seq. |

§ See M. Delambre’s Hist. d’Astro. v. 1, p. 212. See also his Alnaty ss of Ge-
minus, ib. p. 211. Compare with them the Memoirs of M. Ideler, on the Astzo-
nomy of the Chaldeans, 4th vol. of Halma’s Ptolemy, p. 166.

|| See Bailey’s Hist. of Ancient Astronomy, and M. Delambre’s work on the
same subject, v. 1, p. 3.

VOL. I, N

114 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

Thus all confirms the idea that the great reputation of the Chaldeans
was given to them, in more modern times, by their unworthy succes-
sors, who, under the same name, sold, throughout the Roman empire,
horoscopes and predictions ; and who, to gain more credit, attributed
to their rude ancestors the honour of the discoveries of the Greeks.

As to the Indians, it is well known that Bailly, thinking that the
epoch which is used as a period of departure in some of their astrono-
mical tables had been really observed, has attempted thence to deduce
a proof of the remote antiquity of this science amongst this people,
or at least in the nation which had bequeathed its knowledge to them.
But the whole of this system, so laboriously conceived, falls to the
ground of itself, now that it is proved that this epoch was subsequently
adopted on calculations made backwards, and the result of which was
incorrect *.

M. Bentley has discovered that the tables of Tirvalour, on which
particularly the assertion of Bailly was founded, must have been cal-
culated about 1281 after Christ (540 years since) ; and that the Surya-
Siddhanta, which the Brahmins regard as the most ancient and scien-
tific treatise on astronomy, and which they pretend was revealed more
than twenty millions of years ago, could not have been composed
until about 760 years since Tf.

The solstices and equinoxes marked in the Pouranas, and calculated
according to the positions which were assigned to them in the signs
of the Indian zodiac, have had a very remote antiquity assigned to
them. A more exact study of these signs, or nacchatrons, has lately
shown M. de Paravey that reference is only made to solstices of
twelve centuries before Christ. This writer, at the same time, states
that the place of these solstices is so indefinitely fixed, that we cannot
decide on it nearer than two or three hundred years. Those of
Eudoxus and Ycheou-Kong are the same t. It is confidently as-
serted that the Indians do not make observations, and have no instru-
ments necessary for that purpose. M. Delambre agrees with Bailly
and Legentil, that they have processes of calculations which, without
proving the antiquity of their astronomy, at least show its originality § ;
and this conclusion cannot be extended to their sphere, for in-

* See Laplace’s Exposé du Systeme du Monde, p. 330; and the Memoir of M.
Davis on the Astronomical Calculations of the Indians. Mem. de Calcutta, v. 2, p.
225, 8vo. edit.

+ See Mem. of Bentley, on the Antiquity of Surrya-Siddhanta. Mem. de Calcutta,
y. vi, p. 540; and on the Astronomical Systems of the Indians, ib. y. viii, p. 165
of the 8vo. edit.

’ + Manuscript Memoirs of M. de Paravey, on the Sphere of Upper Asia.

§ See the profound treatise on the Astronomy of the Indians, in the History of

Ancient Astronomy, by M, Delambre, y. I, p. 400—556.

THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. 115

dependently of their twenty-seven nacchatrons, or lunar houses,
which are very similar to those of the Arabs, they have in their zodiac
the same twelve constellations as the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and
Greeks *; and if we refer to M. Wilfort, their extra-zodiacal con-
stellations were the same as those of the Greeks, and had names
which differ very slightly from the Greek names +.

The introduction of astronomy in China is attributed to Yao, who
sent, says the Chou-King, astronomers towards the four cardinal
points of his empire to examine what stars presided at the four sea-
sons, and to regulate what was to be done at each season of the
year }, as if it was necessary to send them to different parts to
effect this. About two centuries later, the Chou-King mentions a
solar eclipse, but with absurd circumstances, as in all the fables of this
kind; fora general, and the whole h nese army, is made to march
against the astronomers, because they had not properly predicted
it§; and it is known that for more than two thousand years after-
wards the Chinese astronomers had no means of predicting the
eclipses of the sun with precision. In 1629, of our era, at the time
of their dispute with the Jesuits, they did not even know how to
calculate the obscurations.

The real eclipses, recorded by Confusius in his chronicle of the
kingdom of Lou, do not begin until 1400 years after this, in 776
before Christ, and scarcely fifty years earlier than those of the Chal-

deans recorded by Ptolemeus. So true it is, those nations which
scaped at the same period from the universal catastrophe, have,

under similar circumstances, reached a similar degree of civilization
about the same period. But we should believe, by the identity of the —
name of the Chinese astronomers under different reigns (they appear,
according the Chou-King, to be all called Hi and Ho), that at this
remote epoch their profession was hereditary, as in India, Egypt,
and Babylon.

* See Sir W. Jones’s Memoir on the Antiquity of the Indian Zodiac. Mem. of
Caleutta, v. ii, p. 289, 8vo. edit. and in the French translation, v. ii, p. 332.

+ We subjoin M. Wilfort’s own words from his Memoir on the Testimonies of the
Ancient Hindoo books, concerning Egypt and the Nile. Mem. de Calcutta, v. iii,
p- 433, of the 8vo. edit.

“* Having requested my pundit, who is a learned astronomer, to point out to me
in the heavens the constellation of Antarmada, he immediately directed me to Andro-
meda, which I had taken care not to show him as a constellation that I knew. He
then produced a yery scarce and curious book, in Sanscrit, in which was a parti-
cular chapter on the Upanacshatras, or extra-zodiacal constellations, with figures
of Capeya, and of Casyape sitting, holding a lotus flower in her hand, of Antarmada,
chained with the fish near her, and of Parasica, holding the head of a slain monster
dripping with blood, and with snakes for hair.’’

Who does not here recognize Perseus, Cepheus, and Cassiopea? But let us not
forget that this pundit of M. Wilfort has been much doubted.

+ Chou-King, pp. 6, 7. § Chou-King, pp. 66, et seq.

N 2

116 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

The only more ancient Chinese observation, which does not bear in
itself the proof of its own falsity, is that of the observation calcu-
lated by Tcheou-Kong, about 1100 before Christ, ‘and even that is
incorrect *.

Our readers may thus judge that the inferences drawn from the high
perfection of the astronomy of ancient people are not more conclusive
in favour of the excessive antiquity of these people than the testimo-
nies which they have adduced in their own favour.

But what would this astronomy prove if it were even more perfect
Have we calculated the progress which a science could make in the
bosom of nations which, in some sort, had no other; when the
serenity of the sky, the wants of a pastoral or agricultural life, and
superstition, made the stars an object of universal contemplation ;
when colleges of the most respected men were charged with keeping
a register of interesting phenomena, and of transmitting their memory
of them; where the inheritance of the profession caused children to
be brought up from the cradle in the knowledge acquired by their
fathers? If, amongst the multitude of persons solely occupied with
astronomy, there were one or two expert geometricians, even then all
that these people knew might have been discovered in a few centuries.

We may learn that, since the Chaldeans, real astronomy has had
only two epochs, that of the Alexandrian school, which lasted 400
years, and our own, which has not lasted so long. The age of the
Arabs scarcely added any thing to it. The other ages have been mere:
nullities with respect to it. Only three hundred years have intervened
between Copernicus and the author of La Mécanique Celeste (La-
place), and yet did the Indians require thousands of years to arrive:
at their crude theories +}.

The Astronomical Monuments left by the Ancients have not the exces-
sively remote Dates generally attributed to them.

Recourse has been had to another species of argument. It is pre-
tended that, independently of the knowledge which these nations
might have attained, they have left monuments which bear, by the
state of the heavens which they represent, a certain and remote date ;
and the zodiacs engraved in two temples of Upper Egypt have ap-
peared for some years to afford, on this point, most perfectly conclu-
sive proofs. They present the same zodiacal figures that we now
use, but arranged in a peculiar manner. It has been thought that this

* See in ‘‘La Connoissance des Temps,’ of 1809, p. 382, and in M. Delambre’s
‘ History of Ancient Astronomy,’ v. i, p. 391, extracted from a Memoir of P. Gaubil,
on the observations of the Chinese.

+ The English translator (Jameson) of this Diseourse quotes, on this point, the
example of the celebrated James Ferguson, who was a shepherd in his youth, and
who, whilst watching his flocks at night, had conceived the idea of a chart of the

heavens, and drew it perhaps more correctly than any Chaldean astronomer, A
similar account is given of Jamerey Duyal.

THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. 117

distribution represents the state of the heavens at the moment when
these monuments were delineated, and that it would be possible thence
to decide on the date of the building of the edifices which contain
them *.

But to reach the remote antiquity which is pretended to be deduced
from them, we must first suppose that their division had a decided re-
lation to a certain state of the sky, dependent on the precession
of the equinoxes, which causes the colures to make the tour of the
zodiac in twenty-six thousand years; that it pointed out, for example,
the position of the solstitial point; and secondly, that the state of the
heavens represented was precisely that which took place at the epoch
when this monument was constructed; two suppositions, which of
themselves evidently suppose many others.

In fact, are the figures of these zodiacs constellations, the real groups

* Thus, at Dendera (the ancient Tentyris), a city above Thebes, in the portico of the
great temple which faces the north*, there are on the ceiling the signs of the zodiac
mmarching in two bands, one of which is along the east side, and the other on the oppo-
site side ; they are each held in the embrace of a female figure of similar length, whose
feet are towards the entrance, the head and arms towards the bottom of the portico,
and consequently the feet are towards the north, and the head towards the south.

The Lion heads the band which is in the western side; he is directing his course
towards the north, or the feet of the female figure, and his feet are towards the east-
ern wall. The Virgin, the Balance, the Scorpion, the Archer, and the Capricorn,
follow in the same line. This latter is towards the bottom of the portico, and near
the hands and head of the large female figure. The signs of the eastern band begin
at that extremity when those of the other band finish, and are consequently directed
towards the bottom of the portico, or towards the arms of the tall figure. They have
their feet towards the lateral wall of their own side, and the heads in the contrary
direction to the opposite band. The Aquarius (Verseau) is advancing foremost, fol-
lowed by the Fishes, the Ram, the Bull, and the Twins. The last of the series,
which is the Cancer, or rather Scarabeus (or beetle), for this insect is substituted
fer the Cancer of the Greeks in the zodiacs of Egypt, is thrown on one side on the
legs of the great figure. The place it should occupy is filled by a globe placed on the
apex of a pyramid composed of small triangles, which represent a kind of rays, andin
front of its base is a large female head, with two small horns. A second Scarabzeus
is placed sideways and across on the first band in the angle which the feet of the
large figure form with the body, and in front of the space where the Lion is advanc-
ing, which is rather behind. At the other end of the same band, the Capricorn is
very near the bottom, or the arms of the great figure, and on the band at the left
the Aquarius is at some distance from it, but the Capricorn is not repeated like the
Cancer. The division of this zodiac, from the entrance, is then between the Lion
and the Cancer, where, if it be thought that the repetition of these Scarabzeus marks
the division of a sign, it takes place in the Cancer itself; but that at the bottom is
between the Capricorn and Aquarius.

In one of the inner halls of the same temple there was a circular planisphere in-
scribed in a square, which has been brought to Paris, by M. Lelorrain, and is now in
the king’s library. There are also the signs of the zodiac, amongst many other figures
which appear to represent constellations *.

The Lion there corresponds with one of the diagonals of the square; the Virgin,
who follows him, corresponds with a perpendicular line directed eastward; the outer

SERIA AS Ss Noe SR EE er eee
* See the great work on Egypt. Antiq. v. iv., pl. xx.
+ See the great work on Egypt. Antiq. v..iv. p. 21.

118 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

of stars which now bear the same name, or simply what astronomers
call signs, that is to say, divisions of the zodiacs proceeding from one

of the colures, whatever place this colure occupies ?
Is the point at which these zodiacs have been divided into two bands

necessarily that of a solstice ?
Is the division of the side next the entrance necessarily that of the

summer solstice ?

——$<$<—$<$———————— —————————————————— .c Oc
signs advance in their known order to Cancer, which, instead of completing the chain
by corresponding to the level of the Lion, is placed above him nearer the centre of
the circle; so that the signs are in a line rather spiral.

The Cancer, or rather Scarabeeus, advances in a contrary direction to the other
signs. The Twins correspond with the north; the Sagittary with the south; and
the Fishes with the east, but not exactly. On the eastern side of this planisphere is
a large female figure, with her head in a southerly direction, and her feet towards the
north, like the rest in the portico. A doubt might then be raised asto what point
of this second zodiac should be taken as the commencement of thesigns. If we take
one of the perpendiculars, or one of the diagonals, or the point where one part of the
series passes over the other part, we should divide it at the Lion, or between the Lion
and the Cancer, or lastly at the Twins.

At Esne (the ancient Latopolis), a city below Thebes, there are zodiacs on the
ceilings of two different temples.

That of the great temple, whose entrance is eastward, is on two bands contiguous
to, and parallel with, the length of the south side of the ceiling *,

The female figures who embrace them are not placed lengthwise, but in the breadth
of the bands, so that one is across near the eastern entrance, the head and arms
towards the north, and the feet towards the lateral wall, or southward, and the
other is at the bottom of the portico, also across and facing the first.

The nearest band to the axis of the portico, or north, first presents, on the side of -
the entrance, or eastward, and towards the head of the female figure, the Lion placed a
little backwards and going towards the bottom, the feet towards the lateral wall ;
behind the Lion, at the commencement of the band are two smaller Lions; before
it is the Scarabzeus, and then the Twins advancing in the same direction; then the
Bull, the Ram, and the Fishes, close to each other, placed across the middle of the
band. The Bull with his head towards the lateral wall, the Ram towards the axis,
The Aquarius is farther off, and takes the same direction towards the bottom as the
three first signs.

On the band nearest to the lateral wall and the north, we see at first, but at some
distance from the bottom or west, the Capricorn, which is going in an opposite direc-
tion to the Aquarius, and directs his course eastward, or towards the entrance of the
portico with the feet turned towards the lateral wall. Close to it is the Sagittary cor-
responding with the Fishes and the Ram. He advances towards the entrance, but
his feet are turned towards the axis in an opposite direction to those of the Capri-
corn.

At a certain distance in front, and near each other, are the Scorpion and a female
holding a balance ; finally, a little more in front, but still sufficiently distant from
the anterior, or eastern extremity, is the Virgin, who is preceded by a Sphynx. The
Virgin and the female who holds the balance have their feet towards the wall, so that
the Sagittary i is the only sign which is placed with its head differently to those of the
other signs.

Northward of Esne is a small isolated temple, equally directed towards the east,
and whose portico has also a zodiac; it is on two lateral and separated basse:
That which is along the south side begins with a Lion, who is adyancing towards
the bottom, or westward; the feet turned towards the wall, or southward; the Sca-

* See the great work on Egypt. Antigq. v. i, pl. lxxix.
+ See the great work on Egypt. Antiq. v. i, pl. lxxxvii.

THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. 119

- Does this division indicate, even in a general sense, a phenomenon
dependent on the precession of the equinoxes ?

Does it not rather relate to some epoch whose rotation would be
less; for example, to the moment of the tropical year when such or
such of the sacred years of the Egyptians began, which being shorter
than the real tropical year, by nearly six hours, made the circuit of the
zodiac in 1508 years? Finally, whatever meaning it may have had,
has it been intended thereby to mark the time when the zodiac was
engraved, or that when the temple was built? Was thereno contem-
pletion of recalling a previous state of the heavens atsome interesting
epoch for religion, whether by observation at the time, or concluded on
by posterior calculations ?

From the mere statement of such questions we may perceive how
complicated they were, and how any solution that might be adopted
must be subject to dispute, and how little susceptible of positive proof
in solying any other problem, such as the antiquity of the Egyptian
nation. Thus we may say that, amongst those who endeavoured to
draw a date from these data, there are as many opinions as there
have been writers on the subject.

M. Burkard, the learned astronomer, according to a first examina-
tion, judged that at Dendera the solstice is in the Lion, and conse-

.

rabeeus precedes it, and this latter is headed by the Twins marching in the same
direction. The Bull, on the contrary, meets them, going in an easterly direction;
but the Ram and the Fishes take the direction towards the bottom, or towards the
west.

At the band on the northern side, the Aquarius is near the bottom, or the west,
advancing towards the entrance, or the east, their feet turned towards the wall, pre-
ceded by the Capricorn and the Sagittary, which are going in opposite directions.
The other signs are lost; but it is evident that the Virgin should go at the head of
this band on the side of the entrance.

Amongst the accessory figures of this small zodiac, we must remark two winged
Rams, placed crosswise, the one between the Bull and the Twins; the other between
the Scorpion and the Sagittary; and each nearly in the middle of its band, the
second, however, rather more advanced towards the entrance.

it was thought at first that, in the great zodiac of Esne, the division at the en-
trance was made between the Virgin and the Lion, and that of the bottom be-
tween the Fish and the Aquarius.

But Mr. Hamilton, and MM. de Jallois and Villiers, have imagined that they dis-
covered in the Sphynx, which preceded theVirgin, a repetition of the Lion, analagous
to that of the Cancer in the great zodiac of Dendera; so that, according to them,
the diyision should be made in the Lion. In fact, without this explanation, there
would be only five signs on one side, and seven on the other.

As to the small zodiac at the north of Esne, we cannot tell if there be any
emblem analogous to the Sphynx, because this part is destroyed *.

* British Review, February 1827, p. 136; and the end of the Critical Letter | jon
Zodiacomania, P- 33,

120 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

quently two signs earlier than at the present day, and that the temple
had stood at least 4000 years *.

He, at the same time, assigned an antiquity of 7000 years to that
of Esne, although it is not known how he meant to make these num-
bers agree with what was known of the precession of the equinoxes.

The late Lalande, seeing that the Crab was repeated on the two
bands, imagined that the solstice passed through this constellation ;
but as it was so in the sphere of Eudoxus, he concluded that some
Greek might have represented this sphere on the ceiling of an Egyp-
tian temple, without knowing that he was depicting a state of the
heavens which had for a long time ceased to exist }. It was, as we
may perceive, a very different inference from that of M. Burkard.

Dupuis was the first who deemed it necessary to seek for confirma-
tion of this idea, and he in some sort confidently adopted, that it was
the solstice that was denoted; he found then, for the great zodiac of
Dendera, in the globe at the apex of the pyramid, and in many emblems
placed near different signs, and which sometimes, according to the
ancient authors, such as Plutarch, Horus Apollo, or Clemens Alexan-
drinus; sometimes, according to his own conjectures, he imagined to
represent phenomena which could have really been those of the sea-
sons affected at each sign.

Besides, he maintained that this state of the heavens gives the date
of the monument, and that they had, at Dendera, the original, and not
a copy of the sphere of Eudoxus, which would relate to 1468 years
before Christ, in the reign of Sesostris.

But the number of nineteen boats placed under each band gave him
the idea that the solstice might have been in the nineteenth degree of
the sign, which would make an addition of 288 years {.

Mr. Hamilton §, having remarked that, at Dendera, the Scarabzeus
on the side of the ascending signs is smaller than that on the other side,
an English author || has thence concluded that the solstice may have
been nearer the actual point that the middle of Cancer, which would
take us back to a period of 1000 or 1200 years before Christ.

The late Nouet, judging that this globe, the rays, and the horned
head or Isis, represent the heliacal rising of Sirius, pretended that
they intended to denote an epoch of the sothaic period, but that they

* M. Grobert’s Description of the Pyramids of Geza, p. 117.

+ Connaissance des Temps, for the year XIV.

} Obsesvyations on the Zodiac of Dendera, in the Philosophical and Literary Re-
view, in 1806, 2d division, p. 257, et seq.

Gimeypnca pe PHF :

i| See British Review, Feb. 1817, p. 136, etseq. Article vi, on the Origin and
Antiquity of the Zodiac. It is translated at the end of Swartz’s Critical Let-
ters on Zodiacomania.

THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. 121

intended to mark it by the place of the solstice; but, in the last but
one of these periods, that which elapsed from 2782 years to 1322 before
Christ, the solstice has passed from thirty degrees forty-eight minutes
of the constellation of the Lion, to thirty degrees thirty-four minutes
of the Cancer; at the middle of this period then it was at twenty-
three degrees thirty-four minutes of the Cancer ; the heliacal rising of
Sirius then occurred some days after the solstice. ‘This, according
to Nouet, was indicated by the repetition of the Scarabzus. and by the
image of Sirius in the rays of the sun placed at the commencement of
the band on the right. According to this calculation, he concludes
that this temple is 2052 years before Christ, and that of Esne 4600 *.

All these calculations, even admitting that the division marks the
solstice, must still be susceptible of many modifications ; and it appears
at first that their authors have supposed the constellations to be all like
the signs, of thirty degrees, and have not reflected that they must be
more, at least as they are now drawn, and as the Greeks have trans-
mitted them to us, that they may thus be equal amongst themselves.
In reality, the solstice which is now on this side of the first stars of the
constellation of the Twins could only have left the first stars of the
constellation of Cancer, 45 years after Christ. It only quitted the
constellation of the Lion 1260 years before the same era.

My colleague, the celebrated and learned M. Delambre, has kindly
supplied me with the subjoined tables, which, with the remarks that
follow, elucidate what has been just remarked.

Construction and Use of the Table,

“The longitude of the stars for 1800 has been taken from
the Berlin Tables, as calculated by Lacaille, Bradley, or Flamstead.

“ The first and last of each constellation, and some of the most
brilliant intermediate stars, have been taken. The third column
indicates the year when the longitude of the star was 0; that is the
year when the star was in the equinoctial colure of spring. The last
column marks the year when the star was in the solstitial colure, either
of winter or summer.

«« For the Ram, the Bull, and the Twins, the winter solstice has been
chosen; for the other constellations the summer solstice has been
chosen, that the extreme might be avoided of going too remotely into
antiquity, or approaching too closely to modern times. Besides, it
will be easy to find the opposite solstice, by adding the semi-period of
12,960 years. The same rule applies for finding the time when a star
has been or will be at the autumnal equinox.

“ The sign — indicates the years before our era; the signXthe year
of our era; and the last line at the end of each sign under the name
of ‘ Duration,’ gives the extent of the constellation in degrees, and the

* See the Memoir of Nouet, in the New Researches on the Ancient History of
Volney, v. iii, p. 328—336.

122 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

time that the equinox or the solstice employs in traversing the con-
stellation from one end to the other.

«« Fifty seconds per annum have been taken as the precession, as it
is given by a comparison of the catalogue of Hipparchus with modern
catalogues. This gave the convenience of round numbers, and an ex-
actness that may be depended on. ‘Thus the entire period is 25,920
years; the half period 12,960 years; the quarter 6,480 years; the
twelfth, ora sign, 2,160 years.

«« We must observe that the constellations leave spaces between,
and that sometimes they infringe on each other. Thus, between the
last star of Scorpio and the first of Sagittarius there is an interval of
six degrees and two-thirds; on the contrary, the last cf Capricornus is
more adyanced by fourteen degrees of longitude than the first of
Aquarius.

«« Independently of the inequality of the motion of the sun, the con-
stellations would give a very unequal and faulty measurement of the
year and months. The signs of thirty degrees afford a more convenient
and Jess defective method. But the signs are only a geometric sup-
position; we can neither distinguish nor observe them; they are
continually changing their places by the retrogradation of the equi-
noctial point.

«* We have always been able to calculate roughly the equinoxes and
solstices ; and we have remarked, that the spectacle of the heavens
during the night was not any longer exactly the same as it had been
anciently at the times of the equinoxes and solstices. We have never
been able to observe accurately the heliacal rising of a star; we
must be a few days out of the calculation, and thus we often speak
without having a positive period from which we could reckon. Be-
fore Hipparchus we do not find, either from books or traditions, any
thing whence we may calculate, and this has caused a multiplicity of
systems. We have disputed without having a knowledge of the sub-
ject. Those who are not astronomers may form their own ideas of the
science of the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, &c. &c.; no real inconyeni-
ence will result. We may assign to these people the intelligence and
wisdom of the moderns, but we can borrow nothing from them, for
either they had nothing to leave, or have left nothing. Astronomers
will never draw from the ancients anything of the smallest utility.
Let us then leave to the learned vain conjectures, and confess our po-
sitive ignorance of things useless in themselyes, and of which there is
not a single existing record.

“« The limits of the constellations vary according to the authors that
we consult. We see these limits expand or contract where they im-
press, from Hipparchus to Tycho, from Tycho to Hevelius, from Heve-
* lius to Flamstead, Lacaille, Bradley, or Piazzi.

“ T have said elsewhere, that the constellations were of no use, only
that at best they enable us more easily to find out the stars, whilst the
‘stars themselves point out particularly the fixed points whence we may
refer the motions of the colures or the planets. Astronomy only began.
at the priod when Hipparchus made the first catalogue of stars, mea-

THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. 123

sured the reyolution of the sun, the moon, and their principal inequa-
lities. All the rest is involved in darkness, uncertainty, and gross
errors. It would be lost time to endeavour to explain or search into
the chaos.

« Excepting a few particulars, I have said all that I think on the
subject. I do not pretend to make converts : it is of little consequence
who may or may not adopt my opinions; but if my arguments be com-
pared with the speculations of Newton, Herschel, Bailly, and many
others, it is not impossible that in time these chimeras, more or less
brilliant, may not be relished.

“‘ T have endeavoured to determine the extent of the constellations
after the catasterisms of the false Eratosthenes. The thing is really
impossible. It would be still worse if Hyginus, and particularly Fir-
micus, are consulted. I subjoin what I have extracted from Erato-
sthenes.

Constellations. Duration.

Ae eI. 1747 Years

PauniIs wre so! 1826

Gemini 4.2) © 1636

Cancers. a 1204

Wes seicee: 2617

MISO g ers tea: 3307 f
The Talons.... cA Mie 1089* |}
Scorpio . 2... 1823 {
Sagittarius.... 2138

Capricornus .. 1416

ACTA: 0 ie 1196

Biscess svt. ae” 2936

« As to the Chaldeans, Egyptians, Chinese, and Indians, we must
not think of them. We can, in fact, get nothing from them. My opinion
is expressed in the preliminary discourse of my History of the Astro-
nomy of the Middle Age, pp. 17 and 18.

«< See also the note added to the report on the Memoirs of M. de
Parayey,. vol. vill. of the New Annals of Voyages, and re-published
by M. de Paravey in his Summary of his Memoirs on the Origin of
the Sphere, pp. 24, and from 31 to 36. See also the Analysis of the
Mathematical Labours of the Academy in 1820, pp. 78 and 79.

‘* DELAMBRE,””

* Eratosthenes makes only one constellation of Scorpio and the Talons. He
makes the commencement of the latter without fixing the end: and, as he gives
1823 years to Scorpio, properly so called, there would remain 1089 years for the
Talons, supposing that there was no space between the two constellations.

124 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

We should still have to ascertain when they ceased to place the
constellation in which the sun entered after the solstice, at the head
of the descending signs, and whether that took place immediately
that the solstice had retrograded,:so as to touch the preceding con-
stellation.

Thus MM. Jollois and Devilliers, to whose unremitting ardour we
are indebted for our knowledge of thess famous monuments, always
taking the division towards the entrance of the vestibule as the sol-
stice, and judging that Virgo must have been the first of the descend-
ing constellations, considering that the solstice had not receded at
least as far as to the middle of the constellation of Leo; and thinking,
moreover, as we have observed, that Leo is divided in the great
zodiac of Esne, only make the zodiac as remote as 2610 years before
Christ *.

Mr. Hamilton, the first who observed the division of the sign of
Leo in the zodiac of Esne, reduced the distance of the period of the
solstice there to 1400 years before Christ.

Many other systems on this subject have appeared. Mr. Rhode,
for instance, proposed two. ‘The first made the date of the zodiac of
the portico at Dendera 591 years before. Christ, the second fixes it at
1290 +. M. Latreille assumed the epoch of this zodiac at 670 years
before Christ; that of the planisphere at 550; that of the zodiac of
the great temple of Esne at 2550; and that of the smaller at 1760.

But there was a vital difficulty in all these dates, which set out on
the twofold supposition that the division marks the solstice, and that
the position of the solstice marks the epoch of the monument. The
unavoidable result is, that the zodiac of Esne must be at least 2000,
and perhaps 3000 { years more ancient than that of Dendera, a con-
sequence which evidently destroys the supposition; for no man, with
the slightest knowledge of the history of the arts, can believe that
two edifices so strikingly similar in their architecture have been built
at periods so widely remote from each other.

The feeling of this impossibility, united with the belief that this
division of the zodiacs marks a date, give rise to the conjecture, that
it was intended to mark the period of the sacred years of the Egyp-
tians, when the monument was constructed. These years only lasting

* See the great work on Egypt. Ant. Mem. vol. i, p. 486.

+ Rhode’s Essay on the Age of the Zodiac and Origin of Constellations, in Ger-
man, 1809, p. 78.

+ According to the tables given above, the solstice remained 3474, or at least
3307 years in the constellation Virgo, which occupies the greatest space in the
zodiac; and 2617 in that of Leo. R

THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. 125

three hundred and sixty-five days, if the sun, at the commencement
of one, was at the commencement of a constellation, he would be six
hours backward at the same time in the commencement of the fol-
lowing year, and after one hundred and twenty-one years he would
have retrogaded to the commencement of the preceding sign.

It seems probable enough that the builders of a temple would have
wished to indicate as nearly as possible in what period of the great
year, or sothaic year, it was erected, and the indication of the sign
which then commenced the sacred year was the best possible means
of effecting this. We should thus find that one hundred and twenty
or one hundred and fifty years had elapsed between the building of
the temple at Esne, and that at Dendera.

But, by this view of the case, it still remained to be determined in
which of the great years these erections took place; in that which
finished one hundred and thirty-eight years after; or in that which
terminated 1322 years before Christ, or in some other.

Visconti, the author of this hypothesis, taking the sacred year,
whose commencement corresponded with the sign of Leo, and judging,
from the similarity of these signs, that they had been represented at
an epoch when the opinions of the Greeks were not unknown in
Egypt, could only choose the end of the last great year, or the space
that elapsed between the year twelve, and the year one hundred and
thirty-eight after Christ *, which seemed to him to agree with the
Greek inscription, of which, however, he knew but little, but had heard
that it made some mention of one of the Cesars. _

M. Testa, seeking the dates of the monument by another train of
reasoning, supposed, that as Virgo is at Esne at the head of the zodiac,
it was intended to depict the era of the battle of Actium, as it was
established in Egypt, by a decree of the senate, cited by Dion Cassius,
and which began in the month of September, or the day on which
Augustus took Alexandria f.

M. de Paravey considered these zodiacs in a novel point of view,
which embraces at once both the revolution of the equinoxes, and
those of the great year. Supposing that the circular planisphere of
Dendera must have been placed towards the east, and that the axis
from north to south is the line of the solstices, he found the summer
solstice at the second of Gemini; that of the winter solstice at the
tail of Sagittarius; and the line of the equinoxes would have passed

* Translation of Herodotus, by Larcher, v. ii, p. 570.

+ See the dissertation of the Abbé Dominique Testa. ‘‘ Sopra due Zodiaci no-
vellamente scoperte nell’ Egitto.’’ Rome, 1802, p. 34.

126 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

through Pisces and Virgo, which would give him the first century of
our era for a date.

By this method, the division of the zodiac of the portico could no ~
longer have any relation to the colures, and it would be necessary to
seek elsewhere for the mark of the solstice. M. de Paravey, having
remarked that between all the signs there were female figures bearing
a star on their heads, and going in the same direction; and noticing
that the female only who follows Gemini is tumed in a contrary di-
rection to the others, judged that she marks the tropic, or conversion
of the sun, and that this zodiac thus agrees with the planisphere.

By applying the idea of the easting (ortentement) to the small zodiac
of Esne, we should find the solstices between Gemini and Taurus, and
between Scorpio and Sagittarius. They would be even marked by the
change of direction of Taurus, and by the winged Rams placed across
in these two places. In the great zodiac of the same city, the marks
would be the position across of the Bull and the reverse situation of
Sagittarius. There would then only be one portion of the constella-
tion elapsed between the dates of Esne and those of Dendera ; a space,
however, still too long for edifices so similar in construction.

The late M. Delambre appeared to confirm these conjectures con-
cerning their more modern construction by an experiment on the
circular planisphere, for on placing the stars upon Hipparchus’s pro-
jection, according to the theory of this astronomer, and the positions
which he had assigned them in his catalogue, increasing all the longi-
tudes that thus the solstice would pass through the second of Gemini,
he nearly reproduced this planisphere, and he says, “ this similarity
would have been still more close if he had adopted the longitudes
which are laid down in the catalogue of Ptolemeus, for the year of
our era one hundred and twenty-three. On the contrary, on referring
back twenty-five or twenty-six centuries, the right ascensions and
declinations will be greatly changed, and the projections will have taken
an entirely different figure *. ‘ All these calculations,” adds the great
astronomer, ‘“‘ lead us to the conclusion, that the sculptures are sub-
sequent to the epoch of Alexander.”

In fact, the circular planisphere having been brought to Paris by
MM. Saunier and Lelorrain, M. Biot, in a work + founded on accurate
measures, and calculations replete with sagacity, has determined that

* Delambre. Note at the end of the report of the Memoir of M. de Paravey.
This report is printed in the new Annals of Voyages, v. viii.
-+ See M. Biot’s work, Researches on many Points of Egyptian Astronomy ap-
plied to the astronomical monuments foundin Egypt. Paris, 1823, in 8yo.

THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. OF37

it represents, according to an exact geometrical projection, the state
of the heavens as it was 700 years before Christ; but he is extremely
cautious in not coming to any conclusion that it was sculptured at this
period. ;

In fact, all these efforts of genius and knowledge, in so much as they
affect the epoch of the monuments, have been rendered superfluous,
“since terminating where they should naturally have begun (if the first
observer had not been blinded by prejudice), pains have been taken
to copy and restore the Greek inscriptions engraved on these monu-
ments; and particularly since M. Champollion has attained the art of
deciphering those expressed in hieroglyphics.

It is now certain, and the Greek inscriptions agree with the hiero-
glyphics in proving, that the temple in which the zodiacs have been
ensculptured were built whilst the country was under the dominion of
Rome. The portico of the temple of Dendera, according to the Greek
inscription on its entablature, was dedicated to the health of Tiberius*.

On the planisphere of the same temple we read the title of Auto-
erator in hieroglyphic characters +; and it is probable that it refers to
Nero. The small temple of Esne, the origin of which is placed at latest
between 2700 or 3000 years before Christ, has a column engraven and
painted in the tenth year of Antoninus, one hundred and forty-seven
years after Christ, and sculptured and painted in the same style as the
zodiac which is near it f.

Besides, we have a proof that this division of the zodiac in such or
such a sign has no reference to the precession of the equinoxes, nor to
the displacing of the solstice. A mummy case lately brought from
Thebes by M. Caillaud (and containing, according to a very legible
Greek inscription, the body of a young man who died in the nine-
teenth year of Trajan, one hundred and sixteen years after Christ)§,
has on it a zodiac divided at the same point as those of Dendera || ;
and, according to all appearances, this division marks some astrolo-
gical scheme relative to this individual; a conclusion which may pro-
bably be applied to the division of the zodiacs of the temples. It
either denotes the astrological theme of the moment of their erection ;
that of the prince for whose safety they were devoted; or some similar

* Letronne. Researches into the History of Egypt, during the dominion of the
Greeks and Romans, p. 180.

+ Letronne. Researches, p. 38.

t Letronne. Researches, pp. 456, 457.

§ Letronne. Observations, critical and archeological, on the Zodiacal Remains of
Antiquity, occasioned by an Aigyptian Zodiac, painted in a mummy ease, bearing a
Greek inscription of the time of Trajan. Paris, 1824, in 8vo. p. 30,

|| Letronne, pp. 48, 49.

128 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

epoch relative to which the position of the sun would have appearee
of some particular importance to be noted.

Thus have for ever dissipated the conclusions that have been drawn
from some incorrectly explained monuments against the newness of
the continents and nations, and we might have dispensed with so much
detail on this point, if they were not so recently broached, and had
they not made sufficient impression to preserve their influence on the
opinions of many persons.

The Zodiac is far from bearing in itself an assured and very
remote Date.

But there are writers who have asserted that the zodiac bears in
‘itself the date of its invention, inasmuch as the names and the figures
given to its constellations are an index to the position of the colures-
‘at the time of its invention; and this date, according to many, is so
evident, and so remote, that it becomes a matter of indifference whe-
ther the representations which we possess of this circle are more or
‘less ancient.

They pay no attention to the fact of this sort of argument involving
in itself three suppositions equally uncertain :—the country in which.
they admit that the zodiac was invented; the meaning which is sup-
posed to have been given to the constellations which occupy it; and
the position in which the colures were, relatively to each constella-
tion, when this meaning was given to it.

By the explanation given to other allegories, or as these allegories
are allowed to have relation to the constellation of which the sun oc-
cupied the first degrees, or to that of which it occupied the middle, or
to that which it was on the point of entering; that is to say, of which
it occupied the last degrees, or finally to that which was opposite to it,
and which rose in the evening; or, according as the invention of these
allegories was assigned to another climate, so must we change the date
of the zodiac. The possible variations in this respect may include as
much as half of the revolution of the fixed stars, that is, 13,000 years,
and even more. .

Thus Pluche, generalizing some indications of the ancients, has
thought that Aries announces the beginning of the sun’s elevation and
the vernal equinox; that Cancer announces his retrogradation to the
summer solstice; that Libra, the emblem of the equality, marks the
autumnal ese * ; and that Capricornus, a climbing animal, denotes

* Varro de Ling. Lat. lib. vi. Signa quod aliquid significent, at Libra equinoc-
tium, Mabroc. Sat. lib. I, c. cxxi. Capricornus ab infernis partibus ad superas solem
yeducens Capre naturam yidetur imitari.

THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. 129

the winter solstice; after which, the sun returns to us. In this man-
ner, by placing the inventors of the zodiac in a temperate climate, we
should have rains under Aquarius ; the birth of lambs and kids under
Gemini ; violent heats under Leo; harvests under the Virgin; hunting
under Sagittarius, &c.; and these emblems are perfectly appropriate.
By placing the colures at the commencement of the constellations, or,
at least, the equinox at the first stars of Aries, we should only arrive
in the first instance at 389 years before Christ, an epoch evidently too
modern, and which would render it necessary to refer to an entire
equinoctial period, or 26,000 years. But if it be supposed that the
equinox passed through the middle of the constellation, we should
reach nearly 1000 or 1200 years more remote, to 1600 or 1700 years
before Christ; and this is the epoch which many celebrated men
thought have really to be that of the invention, of the zodiac, the
honour of which, on very slight grounds, they have assigned to
Chiron.

But Dupuis, who needed, for the origin which he pretended to attri-
bute to all religions, that astronomy, and particularly the figures of
the zodiac, should in some sort have preceded all other human institu-
tions, has sought another climate, to find other explanations for the
emblems, and to deduce for them another epoch. If, taking Libra
always as the equinoctial sign, but suppressing it at the vernal equi-
nox, it be asserted that the zodiac was invented in Egypt, we shall
find other proofs equally plausible for the climate of this country *.
Capricornus, or the animal with a fish’s tail, will mark the commence-
ment of the elevation of the Nile at the summer solstice; Aquarius
and Pisces the increase and decrease of the inundation; Taurus the
period of labour; Virgo, the gathering in of the harvest; and they
will mark them at the precise seasons when these operations actually
did take place. According to this hypothesis, the zodiac would have
15,000 + years for a sun supposed at the first degree of each sign ;
more than 16,000 for the middle; and only 4,000, in supposing that
the emblem was given to the sign, opposite to which the sun was f¢.
Dupuis has attached himself to 15,000 years, and on this date has
founded the whole system of his celebrated work.

There were not wanting, however, persons who, admitting that the
zodiac was invented in Egypt, have imagined allegories applicable to

* See the Memoir on the Origin of the Constellations, in Dupuis’ Origin of
Worships, vol. iii, pp. 324, et seq.

+ See the Memoir referred to in the note above, vol. iii, p. 267.

¢ Dupuis himself suggested this second hypothesis, ibid. page 340.

VOL, I. Oo

130 ON SHE REVOLUTIONS OF

subsequent periods. Thus, according to Mr. Hamilton, Virgo would
represent the land of Egypt when it is not fertilized by the inunda-
tion; the Leo, the season when this land is most infested by wild
beasts, &c.* ‘

The remote antiquity of 15,000 years would besides involve this
absurd consequence, that the Egyptians, men who represented every
thing by emblems, and who attached a vast importance to the con-
formity of these emblems with the ideas which they intended to por-
tray, must have preserved the signs of the zodiac for thousands of
years after they had ceased in any manner to correspond with the
original signification.

The late Remi Raige endeavoured to support Dupuis’ opinion by an
entirely novel argument +. Having obseryed that we may find, in
explaining the Egyptian days of the month by the oriental languages,
meanings more or less analogous to the figures of the zodiacal signs,
and finding from Ptolemzeus that epzfi, which signifies Capricornus,
begins on the twentieth of June, and consequently immediately fol-
lows the summer solstice; he draws the conclusion, that at the
beginning Capricornus himself was at the summer solstice, and thus
of the other signs, as Dupuis had done before him. wee

But, independently of all conjecture of these etymologies, Raige
did not observe that 1t was merely chance, that five years after the
battle of Actium, in the year 25 before Christ, at the establishing of
the fixed Alexandrian year, the first day of Thoth was found to cor-
respond with the twenty-ninth of August of the Julian year, and con-
tinued ever since to correspond. it is only from this epoch that the
Egyptian months began from fixed days of the Julian year, at Alexan-
drla only; and Ptolemzus himself did not discontinue to employ in
his Almagest the ancient Egyptian year, with its indefinite months ¢.

Why may not, at some epoch, the names of the signs have been
given to the months, or the names of the months to the signs, in as
arbitrary a manner as the Indians have given to their twenty-seven

* Aieyptiaca, page 215.

++ See the great work on Egypt. Ant. Mem. y. 1, the Memoir of M. Remi Raige,
en the ‘Nominal and Primitive Zodiac of the Ancient Egyptians.’ See also the
table of the Greek, Roman, and Alexandrian months, in the Ptolemeus of Halma,
vol. iii.

ft See ‘Ideler’s Researches on the Astronomical Observations of the Ancients,’ a
translation of which has been inserted by M. Halma, in the third volume of his
Piolemzus ; and particularly the Memoir of Freret on the opinion of Lanauze, re-
lative to the establishing of the Alexandrian year, in the Memoir of the Academy of
Belles Lettres, vol. xvi. p. 308.

THE SURFACE OF THR GLOBE. 131

months twelve names, chosen from amongst those of their lunar
houses, for reasons now impossible to ascertain or account for *?

The absurdity of preserving for fifteen thousand years, in the con-
stellations, the figures and symbolic names which no longer bore any
relation to their respective situations, would have been much more
evident if it had been carried so far as to preserve to the months those
same names which were incessantly in the mouths of the people, and
the irrelevancy of which would be perceptible at every instant.

What then would become of all those other systems, if the figures
and names of the zodiacal constellations had been given to them,
without at all relating to the course of the sun, as their inequality,
the extent of many of them beyond the zodiac, and their manifest
connexion with neighbouring constellations, seem to demonstrate f ?

What would be the consequence, if, as Macrobius distinctly says {,
‘* each sign should be considered as an emblem of the sun, considered
in some one of his effects or general phenomena, and without any re-
ference to the months through which he passes, either into the sign or
into its opposite ?”

Finally, how would it be if names had been given in an abstract man-
ner to the divisions of space or time, as they are now assigned by
astronomers to what they call the signs, and had not been applied to
the constellations or groups of stars but at an epoch determined by
chance, so that we could conclude nothing farther from their significa-
tion § ? .

Here are, doubtless, sufficient arguments to deter an ingenuous mind
from seeking into astronomy for proofs of the antiquity of nations; _
but, even if these pretended proofs were as certain as they are vague
and destitute of convincing results, what conclusion could we thence
draw against the great catastrophe of which we have so many other
indisputable demoustrations? We can only allow that, as some mo-
dern writers have said, astronomy was amongst the sciences preserved
by those persons whom this catastrophe spared.

# See Sir William Jones’s Memoir on the Antiquity of the Indian Zodiac, Mem. de
Caleutta, vol. ii.

+ See the Zodiac explained, or Researches on the Origin and Signification of the
Constellations of the Greek Sphere, translated from the Swedish by M. Swartz,
Paris, 1809.

{ Saturnal. 1.1, c. 21, sub fin. Nec solus Leo, sed signa quoque universa Zodiact
ad naturam solis jure referuntur, &c. It is only in this explanation of Leo and Ca~
pricornus that he has recourse to any phenomena relative to the seasons; Cancer
even is explained under a general point of view, and with relation to the obliquity of
the progress of the sun.

§ See M. de Guignes’ Memoir on the Zodiacs of the Eastern Nations, Academie
des Belles Lettres, vol. xlvii.

182 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

Exaggerations with respect to certain Operations in Mines.

The antiquity of certain mining operations has been greatly exag-
gerated. A modern author asserts, that the mines of the island of
Elba, judging from the heaps of rubbish excavated from them, must
have been worked for more than forty thousand years; but another
author, who has also examined these rubbish heaps with care, reduces
this period to rather more than five thousand years *, and then, in sup-
posing that the ancients only excavated annually but a quarter of the
quantity now extracted. But why should we believe that the Romans,
who consumed so much iron in their military arrangements, should
draw so little from these mines? Besides, if these mines had been
worked for four thousand years only, how should iron have been known
in days of such remote antiquity ?

General Conclusion concerning the Epoch of the last Revolution.

I concur, then, with the opinion of MM. Deluc and Dolomieu, that
if there be anything determined in geology, it is, that the surface of
our globe has been subjected to a vast and sudden revolution, not
further back than from five to six thousand years: that this revolution
has buried and caused to disappear the countries formerly inhabited by
man, and the species of animals now most known; that contrariwise
it has left the bottom of the former sea dry, and has formed on it the
countries now inhabited: that since the revolution, those few indivi-
duals whom it spared have been spread and propagated over the lands
newly left dry, and consequently it is only since this epoch that our
societies have assumed a progressive march, have formed establish-
ments, raised monuments, collected natural facts, and combined scien-
tific systems.

But the countries now inhabited, and which the last revolution left
dry, had been before inhabited, if not by mankind, at least by land
animals; consequently one jreceding revolution, at least, had over-
whelmed them with water; and, if we may judge by the different or-
ders of animals whose remains we find therein, they had, perhaps, un-
dergone two or three irruptions of the sea.

Ideas of Researches to be still further made in Geology.
These are the alternatives which now appear to me to form the most
important geologic problem which requires solving, or rather, properly
defining, or accurately limiting; for, to solve it entirely, it would be

* See M, de Fortia d’ Urban’s History of China before the Deluge of Ogyges, p. 33,

THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. 133

requisite to discover the cause of these events, an ee of a
very different nature.

I repeat, we see very clearly what is passing on the surface of the
continents in their present state; we have very fairly ascertained the
uniform march and regular succession of the primitive formations, but
the study of secondary formations has scarcely yet commenced ; that.

‘wonderful series of unknown zoophytes, and marine mollusca, followed

by reptiles and fresh-water fish equally unknown, and these in their
turn replaced by zoophytes and mollusca more akin to those of the
present day; those land animals and mollusca, and other fresh-water
animals, also unknown, which next occupy the places, to be again dis-
placed, but by mollusca and other animals similar to those of our own
seas; the relations of these various beings with the plants, whose re-
mains accompany theirs; the relations of these two kingdoms with the
mineral layers which contain them; the more or less their uniformity
‘with one another in different basins; all these are a series of pheno-
mena which appears to me to call imperiously for the profound atten-
tion of philosophers.

Made interesting by the variety of the productions of the partial or
universal revolutions of this epoch, and by the abundance of the va-
rious species which alternately figure on the stage, this study is divested
of the dryness of that of the primordial formations, and does not, like
it, plunge itself into hypotheses. The facts are so close, so curious,
and so evident, that they suffice, in a measure, for the most ardent
imagination ; and the conclusions which they arrive at from time to
time, however scrupulous the observer may be, not having anything
indefinite, at the same time have nothing arbitrary. Finally, it is in
the events which are nearer to our own times that we can hope to find
any traces of the more ancient events and their causes, if it be indeed
allowed, after so many trials, to flatter ourselves with such a hope.

These ideas have beset, I may say, have tormented me, whilst I have
been engaged in making researches amongst fossil bones, the results of
which I have lately made public; researches which only comprise so
small a portion of these phenomena of the last age but one of the earth,
and which, notwithstanding, are united to all the others, in an intimate
manner. It was nearly impossible that the desire of studying the ge-
nerality of these phenomena should not arise, at least, in a limited
space around us. My excellent friend, M. Brongniart, in whom other
studies had excited similar desires, ;desired me to associate with him,
and thus we have laid the first foundations of our researches in the
vicinity of Paris; but this work, although it bears my name, is nearly

134 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

all that of my friend, from the infinite pains he has bestowed from the
commencement of ovr plan, and, since our journies, on the profound
investigation of the objects, and in classifying the whole. I have, by
consent of M. Brongniart, placed it in the second part of my Researches,
in that in which I have treated cf the fossil remains of our neighbour-
hood. Although relating, apparently, to a limited country, it affords
numerous results applicable to geology generally, and in this light may
be considered as an integral part of the present Discourse, at the same
time that it is most assuredly one of the finest ornaments of my work *.
We have there the history of the most recent changes that have
taken place in a particular basin, and it leads us to the chalk forma-
tion, whose extent over the globe is infinitely greater than that of the
materials of the basin of Paris. The chalk, which has been considered
as modern, is thus found to have a remote origin in the ages which
preceded the last catastrophe. It forms a kind of boundary between
the most recent formations, those to which the name of Terizary may
be applied; and the formations which are called Secondary, those
which were deposited before the chalk, but after the primitive forma-
tions, and those termed Transition.
The recent observations of many geologists who have followed up
our views, such as MM. Buckland, Webster, Constant-Prevost, and
those of M. Brongniart himself, have proved that these formations,
posterior to the chalk, have been reproduced in many other basins be-
sides that of Paris, although with some variations; so that it has been
possible to constitute an order of succession, many of the stages of
which extend to nearly all countries that have been examined.

Recapitulation of the Observations on the Succession of Formations.

The most superficial strata, those deposites of mud and clayey sand
mixed with round flints transported from distant countries, and filled
with fossil remains of land animals for the most part unknown, or at
least foreign to the country, seem principally to have covered all the
plains, filled the bottoms of all caverns, choked up all the clefts of
rocks which have been in their way. Described with great care by
M. Buckland, under the name of di/uvium, and very different from
other beds consisting of matter deposited incessantly by torrents and
rivers, which contain only relics of the animals of the country, and
which M. Buckland distinguishes by the name of allwviwm; they form

* Separate copies have been printed, entitled ‘‘ Description Geologique des Envi-
rons de Paris,’’? par MM. G. Cuvier and Al. Erongniart, second edition, Paris, 1822,
in 4to.

‘

THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. 135

at present, in the eyes of all geologists, the most evident proof of the
immense inundation which was the last catastrophe of this globe *.
Between this diluvium and the chalk are formations alternately

. filled with the productions of fresh water and salt water, which mark

the irruptions and retreats of the sea, to which, since the deposition
of the chalk layer, this portion of the globe has been subjected; first,
marls and mill-stones and hollow silex, filled with fresh-water shells,
like those of our marshes and pools; under them are marls, sand-
stones, and limestone, all the shells of which are marine; oysters, &c.

Still deeper are fresh-water formations of a much more remote pe-
riod, and particularly those famous gypsum deposites in the vicinity of
Paris, which have afforded the means of adorning the edifices of this
fine city with so much facility, and where we have discovered entire
genera of land animals, of which no traces have been elsewhere de-
tected.

They rest on those equally remarkable beds of limestone, of which
our capital is built, and in the more or less close composition of which
the patience and sagacity of the savans of France have already de-.
tected more than eight hundred species of shells, all marine, but the
great part unknown in the seas now existing. They also contain bones
of fishes, of cetaceous and other marine mammiferous animals.

Under the marine limestone is anotlier fresh-water deposite, formed
of clay, in which are interposed great layers of lignite (brown coal),
or that fossil coal of more recent origin than the common coal. Amongst
the shells, always of fresh water, there are also some bones; but it is
remarkable that they are bones of reptiles, and not of mammifera. It
is filled with crocodiles and tortoises, but the genera of extinct mam-
mifera, which are deposited in the gypsum, are not there to be found.
They did not as yet exist in that country when these clays and lignites
were formed.

This fresh-water formation, the most ancient that has been with cer-
tainty detected in our neighbourhood, and which supports all the for-
mations which we have just enumerated, is itself supported and en-
vironed entirely by chalk ;- a formation, vast from its thickness and by
its extent, which shows itself in very distant countries, such as Pome-
rania, and Poland; hut which, in our environs, pervades with a sort of
continuity Berri, Champagne, Picardy, Upper Normandy, and a part
of England, and also forms a great circle, or rather basin, in which

* See Professor Buckland’s great work, called ‘ Reliquie Diluviane,’ London,
1§23, in 4to. pp. 185, et seq.; and the article ‘EAU’ by M. Brongniart, in the
14th yolume of the Dictionary of Natural Sciences.

136 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF

the formations of which we have been speaking are contained, but
the borders of which they also cover in those places where they were
less elevated.

In fact, it is notin our basin alone that these kinds of formations
are deposited. In other countries, where the surface of the chalk
offered similar cavities; in those even where there was no chalk, and
where the most ancient formations alone offered themselves as sup-
porters, circumstances often brought deposites more or less like our
own, and containing similar organic bodies.

Our fresh-water shell formations of the second stage have been
found in England, Spain, and even to the confines of Poland.

The marine shells placed between them have been discoyered along
the whole chain of the Appenines.

Some of the quadrupeds of our gypsum deposites, the paleotheria,
for instance, have also left some of the remains in the gypseous forma-
tions of Velai, and in the molasse quarries of the south of France.

Thus the partial revolutions which took place in our environs, be-
tween the epoch of the chalk and that of the general deluge, and
during which the sea was thrown upon our districts or retired from
them, occurred also in a multitude of other countries. The globe
underwent a long series of variations and changes, probably very rapid,
since the deposites they have left nowhere show much thickness or
solidity. The chalk was produced by a sea more tranquil and unin-
terrupted; it contains only marine productions, amongst which there
are, however, some vertebrated animals of most peculiar kinds; but the
whole class of reptiles and fishes, great tortoises, enormous lizards,
and similar animals.

The formations previous to the chalk, and in the hollow of which
it is deposited, as the layers of our neighbourhood are, form a great
part of Germany and England; and the efforts recently made by the
learned of these two countries, similar to ours, and by employing the
same principles, united to those which had been previously tried by the
school of Werner, will soon leave nothing to be desired in addition to
our knowledge of them. MM. Humboldt and de Bonnard in France
and Germany, Messrs. Buckland and Conybeare in England, have
given us the most perfect and complete tables of them.

The table annexed, which was kindly drawn out for me by M.
de Humboldt, to adorn my work, not only has the secondary forma-
tions, but the whole series of strata arranged from the most ancient
that are known, to the most recent and superficial. It is ina manner
the summary of the labours of all geologists..

JUST PUBLHSIED, :
CUVIER’S RESEARCHES ON FOSSIL BONES.

PRICE ONE SHILLING, ~
In Demy 8vo., printed entirely with New Type; the Second Number of

“Cs GREAT WORK ON FOSSIL BONES.—The success or

the English Version of Cuvier’s Animal Kingdom, has induced the
Proprietor of that Work to undertake the publication of a Complete
Translation, Illustrated, of the Work of the same Author, universally con-
sidered as the noblest of his intellectual performances,

LES RECHERCHES SUR LES OSSEMENS FOSSILES
(RESEARCHES ON FOSSIL BONES).

This Work has been long regarded by the Geologists of all countries as
one of the most extraordinary productions that ever emanated from human
genius. It is allowed by every nation, and by none more promptly than
our own, that this contribution has changed the whole character of Geolo-
gical Science, and has created means for facilitating its study, such as
resembles more the revelations of an inspired intelligence, than the ordi-
nary triumphs of human reason, patience, and industry.

The Rev. W. D. Conybeare, F.R.S. V.P.G.S. Corr. Memb. Institute
of France, &c., one of the most accomplished of the Geologists that exalt
the scientific character of our country; thus speaks of Cuvier’s Work on
Fossil Bones, in his recent able Report, obtained from him at the solicita-
tion of the British Association for the Advancement of Science :

“The third School, or that of Tertiary Geology, owes its foundation to
the admirable Memoir on the Basin of Paris, published by Cuvier and

’ Brongniart-in 1811. ‘The high ‘scientific distinction of.Cuvier, and the
striking and interesting nature of the facts developed in his brilliant
Memoir, excited a marked sensation, and commanded the general atten-
tion of men of science; for none such could peruse with indifference those
masterly descriptions, which exhibited the environs of one of the great
metropolitan cities of Europe, as having been successively occupied by
oceanic inundations and fresh-water lakes; which restored from the scat-
tered fragments of their disjomted skeletons, the forms of those animals
long extinct, whose flocks once grazed on the margin of those lakes, and
which presented to our notice, the case of beds of rock, only a few inches
in thickness, extendimg continuously over hundreds of square miles, and
constantly distinguished by the same peculiar species of fossil shells.”

From another part of this luminous Report, we extract the following
allusion to Cuyier, and his greatest work. .

«« We have to deplore within the present year, the loss of that ilus-
trious Naturalist who was the first to raise Comparative Anatomy to the
rank of an exact science, and, who, by his highly philosophical generaliza-
tion of the constant co-ordinate relations of the animal structure, became
at once the Newton of that science. Many an investigator, following the
paths he first pointed out, has reaped brilliant discoveries by the compara-
tively easy labour of decyphering the remains before him by the Key fully
farnished in the Ossemens Fossiles.”’

_ This Work will be translated from the copious and complete Edition,
(The Fourth,) which is now in the course of publication at Paris, under the
superintendence of M. F. Cuvier, the brother of the illustrious author, who

has most materially enriched this edition by Notes which were collected
by Cuvier himself, in his life-time. .

Valuable Standard Works, Published, or in course of Publication, by
G. HENDERSON, No. 2, Old Bailey, Ludgate-hill.

‘ Complete.in 3 volumes, price 7s. 6d. bound,

THE ENCYCLOPAIDIA OF ROMANCE,

Consisting of Original Novels, Romances, and Tales.
Edited by the Rev. HENRY MARTINEAU,

Published on the 1st of every. Month, price 1s.,

THE MAGAZINE OF BOTANY AND GARDENING,
BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

Wy LhLeER’s GARDENERS’ DICTIONARY.

This day is published, in demy 8vo., printed entirely with type cast
expressly for the work, the Twelfth Number of MILLER’S GARDEN:
ERS’ DICTIONARY. REVISED.

The new work will be, upon the whole, a substantial copy of Ma prs
Gardeners’ Dictionary, added to which will be copious information and
directions in the several branches of agricultural labour, included under
the heads—

*]. Agricultural Chemistry and Mineralogy, including the composition
and application of manures, the selection of soils for particular pur-_
poses, &c. &e.

2. Kevicultural Zoology, comprehending the treatment, improveraent,
&e., of all animals connected with or employed in farms.

The whole is under the superintendence of a society of gentlemen
eminent in the sciences, which form the subject of these volumes.

The work will” be published in 50 numbers, at One Suinuine each,
they will appear uninterruptedly on the Ist of every month, or oftener
and every number will be embellished with two beautifully engraved
steel plates of plants, agricultural implements, plans of gardens, farms,
and every modern improvement in husbandry that requires ies em
by design. TG

CUVIER ON ZOOLOGY. ie

Now Publishing in demy 8vo., printed sabrely with type cast ae oa ae a
for the Work, the 39th Number of a New English Version of the Great
Work of Cuvien—* Le Reenze Anat,” or— ies

¢ THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 2

Edition of his Animal Ringe nda in so altered and. aren a pa ;
as to give it a completely new character. The advantages of the new —
ys will at once be demonstrated, when it is stated, that, for a very,

more fan Be ee

London: G. Henperson, No. 2, Old Bailey, Ludgate Hill,