yiSTRONOMY of the BRJHMINS. 



^b:> 



ofthe epoch, coiiies out lo^, 3°, 38', 13". Now, the mean longi- 

 tude of the fun, from De la Caille's tables, for the fame time, 

 is io\ 1°, 5', 57", fuppofing the preceffion of the equinoxes 

 to have been uniformly at the rate it is now, that is, 50";^ an- 

 nually. But M. DE LA Grange has demonftrated, that the 

 preceffion was lefs in former ages than in the prefent ; and his 

 formula gives 1°, 45', 22", to be added, on that account, to 

 the fun's longitude already found, which makes it lo', 2°, 51', 

 19", not more than 47' from the radical place in the tables of 

 Tirvalore. This agreement is near enough to afford a ftrong 

 proof of the reality of the ancient epoch, if it were not for the 

 difficulty that remains about confidering the fun's place as the 

 true, rather than the mean ; and, for that reafon, I am unwil- 

 ling that any ftrefs fhould be laid upon this argument. The 

 place of the moon is not liable to the fame objedlion. 



24. The moon's mean place, for the beginning of the Caly- 

 ougham, (that is, for midnight between the 17th and 18th of 

 February 3102, A. C. at Benares), calculated from Mayer's 

 tables, on the fuppofition that her motion has always been at 

 the fame rate as at the beginning of the prefent century, is 

 10^, 0°, 51', 16"*. But, according to the fame aftrono- 

 mer, the moon is fubjed to a fmall, but uniform accele- 

 ration, fuch, that her angular motion, in any one age, is 

 9" greater than in the preceding, which, in an interval of 

 4801 years, muft have amounted to 5°, 45', 44". This muft 

 be added to the preceding, to give the real mean place of the 

 moon, at the aftronomical epoch of the Calyougham, which is 

 therefore 10% 6°, 37'. Now, the fame, by the tables of Tir- 

 valore, is 10^, 6°, d ; the difference is lefs than two-thirds of 

 a degree, which, for fo remote a period, and confidering the 

 acceleration of the moon's motion, for which no allowance 



u 2 could 



• Aft. Ind. p. 142, &C. The firft meridian is fuppofed to pafs through Benares ; but 

 even if it be fuppofed 3° farther weft, the difference, which is here 37', will be only in- 

 creafed to 42'. 



