140 The Rev. Dr. Wall on the Nature, Age, and Origin of the 



than two thousand years. And unquestionably if we had access to still older 

 systems of Indian astronomy, with their dependant chronicles or Puranas, we 

 should, on comparing them with the representations on the subject that have 

 been last imposed upon the public, find the quantity of the retrogression still 

 greater. Mr. Bentley, indeed, seems to have thought that the earliest chronicle 

 he speaks of, gives the dates correctly, because there is not much difference in 

 this respect between it and the second ; but as the Pandits have been to a cer- 

 tainty caught antedating in one of those systems of theirs that have reached us, 

 the obvious inference from analogy is, that they practised the same kind of fraud 

 in the others. Even in the first of them the adoption of enormous cycles is pre- 

 sented to our observation (and there surely is strong reason to suspect the 

 chronology which is connected with such cycles) ; its Calpa, though of very 

 diminutive size when compared with subsequent ones, yet contains 2,400,000 

 years. What, however, places beyond the reach of doubt the fallacious nature of 

 the chronological part of this, as well as of the subsequent systems, is, that it 

 refers names and events to times long antecedent to the use of alphabetic writing 

 among the Hindoos ; of which times, consequently, it is impossible that they could 

 have any knowledge. 



The next neighbours to this people, the Persians, afford a very striking 

 instance of the actual impossibility (ever since man's age was curtailed to its pre- 

 sent length) of any nation's preserving its history by means of oral tradition, or 

 of such hieroglyphic writing as was employed by the ancients ; and I shall con- 

 clude what I have to state for the present on the subject before me with bringing 

 this point under the consideration of the reader. The earlier portion of the 

 ancient history of Persia has been transmitted to us by Herodotus ; and the most 

 interesting and remarkable part of it, — that which is connected with the life of 

 Cyrus, — has also been recorded by Xenophon. The latter, indeed, embellishes 

 his narrative with speeches of probably his own invention ; which, however, are 

 most appropriate to the characters, as he had been told them, of the parties about 

 whom he writes. But, with respect to facts, no doubt can be reasonably en- 

 tertained but that he, as well as the former author, paid the strictest attention 

 to truth, in relating them faithfully as they had been described to him ; and both 

 historians had opportunities of gaining the best information that was accessible in 

 their respective days. Yet they differ most materially from each other in the 



