Astronomical Instrument of the Ancient Irish. 5 
It is not possible, I think, to imagine any other use for this instrument, or to deny 
that assigned to it. 
On the upper ring was another loose one, apparently for the purpose of hanging it 
up, which was broken in the pocket of the Dean as he brought it to me; but it is 
preserved, and exactly fits the broken part, so as to indicate its true position, as re- 
presented in the drawings. 
The outside edge is the equator or ecliptic, with the phases of the moon. The 
interior moveable circle exhibits the inclination of the earth’s axis to the equator. 
{t will be observed, that the learning and doctrines of the Druids, as related by 
Cesar, exactly tally with those of the Phenician philosopher Pythagoras, which, as far 
as astronomy is concerned, is shortly summed up in the following passage in a work 
published by Mr. Mason Good, and Doctor Olynthus Gregory : 
“In astronomy his (Pythagoras) inventions were many and great. It is reported, 
that he discovered and maintained the true system of the world, which places the sun 
in the centre, and makes all the planets revolve about him ; from him it is to this day 
called the Old or Pythagorean System, and is the same as that revived by Coper- 
nicus. He discovered that Lucifer and Hesperus were but one and the same, being 
the planet Venus, though formerly thought to be two different stars. The invention 
of the obliquity of the Zodiac, is also ascribed to him. He first gave the world the 
name of J<osmos, from the order and beauty of all things comprehended in it, assert- 
ing that it was made according to musical proportion ; for he held that the sun (by 
him and his followers termed the fiery globe of unity) was seated in the midst of the 
universe, and the earth and planets moving around him ; so he held that the seven 
planets had an harmonious motion, and their distances from the sun corresponded to 
the musical intervals or divisions of the monochord. 
** Pythagoras and his followers held the transmigration of souls, making them suc- 
cessively occupy one body after another.” 
Let us see how exactly this agrees with what Cesar says of the Druids :— 
“‘Imprimis hoc volunt persuadere non interire animas, sed ab aliis post mortem 
transire ad alios : atque hos maxime ad virtutem exercitari putant metu mortis neglecto. 
Multa preterea de sideribus atque eorum motu, de mundi, ac terrarum magnitudine, 
de rerum natura de deorum immortalium viac potestate disputant, et juventuti trans- 
dunt.”—Lib. VI. 13. 
In this short passage is condensed the precise philosophy of Pythagoras which is 
declared to have been taught to the youth by the Druid philosophers of the Celt. 
Pythagoras was born at Sidon, in Phenicia, about the 47th Olympiad, or 590 years 
before our era ; but the Greeks say his father was a Greek merchant of Samos, where 
he was brought when young ; but his thirst for knowledge not being satisfied with the 
ignorance which preyailed at that place, at eighteen years of age he travelled, first to 
VOL. XVII. BB 
