On the Lunar Cycle. 355 



ro(iuisUe equations ; and whether or not the attempt is success- 

 fill, certain it is that an admirable harmony is discoverable even 

 in the rude and unfinished method there followed. The like 

 method is pursued in a subsequent communication, page 439, 

 where the same is given at large, bringing the corresponding 

 dates up to the very day, and in many instances within a few 

 hours, leaving the difference of meridians, and other particulars, 

 to the skill of those who are disposed to investigate them more 

 minutely. In this paper the number of lunar cycles is stated at 

 48, which is the quotient of 912 divided by 19, the years of one 

 cycle, and the revolutions of the moon's ascending Node at 49; 

 and thus, if you divide 912 years by 49, there will be given the 

 period of one revolution, viz. 18 years about 224 days. M. La 

 Caille's Elements, translated by Robertson, page 285, makes 

 this period IS years, 224 days, 5 hours, reckoned from the first 

 point of Aries. 



I presume, sir, there is no occasion here to introduce anoma- 

 listic calculations of the sun and moon ; the mass of evidence al- 

 ready produced in the corresponding eclipses at 912 years di- 

 stance, and the eclipses recorded to have happened, show most 

 evidently that the true motions of the sun and moon's apogee 

 and node must agree at and after such an interval, or such phse- 

 nomena could not take place. I do not think these substantial 

 parts of the argument at all affected byMr.Utting, who appears 

 to have resorted to hypothesis in adducing such long and endless 

 calculations, wherein tables constnjcted by the most eminent 

 astronomers become exhausted, and all their perfections lost in 

 unknown and multiplied error. The moon is a wonderful planet, 

 and in every respect our nocturnal sun ; her path in the heavens 

 demonstrates her equinoxes and solstices, summer and winter, 

 and day and night, all performed in the space of one month. 

 How possible is it then for men to err in siich vast and immea- 

 surable calculations as some authors have stated I I utterly dis- 

 avow the possibility of any man to prove the reality of any lunar 

 period surpassing the age of the world itself, and indeed do most 

 justly suspect that the principles of such calculation, multiplied 

 upon and unreasonably augmented, absolutely deceive both those 

 who invent them, and those who use them. 



The ancients seem not to have gone beyond 900 or 1260 years 

 in their great lunar and ecliptic period, page 18, vol. 56 ; but 

 Mr. Smith, quoted by Ferguson, Astron. page 251, iiy a strange 

 process, augments this period into no less than 12000 or 1^000 

 years, and remarks, that " the eclipses which happened about 

 the creation, are little more than half-way yet of their ethereal 

 circuit ; and will be 4000 years before they enter the earth any 



Y y 2 more. 



