114. THE GREEK ASTRONOMY. 



of practical numeration on which such a system of terms is always 

 founded. 2 The South American Indians, the Koussa Caffres and Hot- 

 tentots, and the natives of New Holland, all of whom are said to be 

 unable to reckon further than the fingers of their hands and feet, can- 

 not, as we do, include in their notion of a year the fact of its consist- 

 ing of 365 days. This fact is not likely to be known to any nation 

 except those which have advanced far beyond that which may be con- 

 sidered as the earliest scientific process which we can trace in the his- 

 tory of the human race, the formation of a method of designating the 

 successive numbers to an indefinite extent, by means of names, framed 

 according to the decimal, quinary, or vigenary scale. 



But even if we suppose men to have the habit of recording the 

 passage of each day, and of counting the score thus recorded, it 

 would be by no means easy for them to determine the exact number 

 of days in which the cycle of the seasons recurs ; for the indefiniteuess 

 of the appearances which mark the same season of the year, and the 

 changes to which they are subject as the seasons are early or late, 

 would leave much uncertainty respecting the duration of the year. 

 They would not obtain any accuracy on this head, till they had at- 

 tended for a considerable time to the motions and places of the sun ; 

 circumstances which require more precision of notice than the general 

 facts of the degrees of heat and lio-ht. The motions of the sun, the 



o o 



succession of the places of his rising and setting at different times of 

 the year, the greatest heights which he reaches, the proportion of the 

 length of day and night, would all exhibit several cycles. The turning 

 back of the sun, when he had reached the greatest distance to the 

 south or to the north, as shown either by his rising or by his height 

 at noon, would perhaps be the most observable of such circumstances. 

 Accordingly the rpo-al ?}e/ltoto, the turnings of the sun, are used re- 

 peatedly by Hesiod as a mark from which he reckons the seasons of 

 various employments. " Fifty days," he says, " after the turning of 

 the sun, is a seasonable time for beginning a voyage." 4 



The phenomena would be different in different climates, but the 

 recurrence would be common to all. Any one of these kinds of phe- 

 nomena, noted with moderate care for a year, would show what was 

 the number of days of which a year consisted ; and if several years 



1 Arithmetic in Encyc. Metrop. (by Dr. Peacock), Art. 8. s Ibid. Art. 82. 



4 "HftaTa -nivrfiKotiTa fisru rpoiras fit\loio 



(\84vTos Bipcos. Op. et D'us, 661. 



