SEYFFARTH ON THE THEORY OF THE MOONS MOTIONS. 515 



date of this eclipse, moreover, is refuted by the Apis periods, by 

 the turnus of the priests, by Daniel, by the reports concerning 

 the years in which Cyrus was born, in which he conquered Baby- 

 lon and Nineveh, and died, as we have seen (p. 483). Finally, 

 a short time since, Airy himself conceded the untenableness of 

 Hansen's Tables, for our newspapers report the following item : 

 " In his last report, Prof. Airy devotes a few words to the great 

 work he has been engaged in, namely, the preparation for the 

 formation of Lunar Tables, according to a new treatment of the 

 theory by which he hopes to be able to give greater accuracy to 

 the final results by means of operations which are entirely numeri- 

 cal throughout the work. Considerable progress has been made 

 in these numerical developments, and he expects, at least, to put 

 his theory in such a state that there will be no danger of its entire 

 loss in the event of his death." In one word, Prof. Airy himself 

 discovered Hansen's theory to be incorrect. — The third and last 

 eclipse computed by Airy for vindicating the usual lunar motions 

 and Hansen's Tables is that in —584, May 2Sth, 4I1. 15m. P. T., 

 ft 2 W., which he referred to the battle-field on the Halys (Her. 

 i. 74). As this eclipse, however, was, according to Hansen's 

 Tables, not total on the Halys, Airy was compelled to place the 

 battle-field between Smyrna, Tarsus, Ancyra, Iconium, and Issus. 

 Moreover, since Cyrus was born, as we have seen (p. 485), in 

 — 596 ; and since Mandane, the mother of Cyrus, was born one 

 year after the battle on the Halys, viz. in —620, the strange event 

 came to pass that Cyrus was wonderfully born thirteen years prior 

 to his mother. 



We proceed now to the 16 eclipses in "Nature," 1872, July 25, 

 p. 251, carefully computed by Prof. Hind, by which the present 

 theory of the moon and Hansen's Table appeared to be mathe- 

 matically justified. 



No. 1 relies on a cuneiform inscription, explained by Rawlin- 

 son. I do not know either how far the study of the cuneiform 

 literature of the Assyrians has since my "Alphabeta genuina," 

 Lipsiae, 1S40, p. 133, advanced, or what reasons led Hind to refer 

 this presumed eclipse to —762, June 15. At that time no chrono- 

 logical eras existed except those of single kings ; consequently 

 the hypothetic eclipse must concern a certain year of a certain 

 Assyrian king whose name is not determined by Rawlinson. 



