216 Idolatry and Philosophy of the Zabians. 
atmosphere upon the feldspar contained in them.* But it would ap- 
pear, that these explanations are very inadequate to the case, and 
“every person who has attentively considered them, will come to the 
unbiassed conclusion that they are untrue. 
It has been said that there were two great Zabian festivals each 
year, from which if we attentively consider them, we may perhaps 
be able to assign a period, approaching to the time of their institu- 
tion. ‘Tauric festivals were celebrated by the Druids. On the eve 
of May day, all the fires were lighted on the tops of the cairns, and 
the people leaped through them in honor of Bel. This was an an- 
cient kind of purification, which we find so strictly forbidden in the 
writings of Moses. In passing, it may be remarked, that Bel was 
a name of the sun all over the world; Long poles thence called May 
poles were erected, they were crowned with garlands. ‘This festi- 
_ val was celebrated in honor of the return of Spring. ‘The sun en- 
tered Taurus the Bull, and these joyous proceedings welcomed his 
approach, when the bull opened with his horn, the vernal year. 
Freret expressly says, these feats of Mithras were derived from 
Chaldea, where they had been instituted, for celebrating the entrance 
of the sun into the sign Taurus. There is in the British museum 
an ancient tablet, representing Mithras killing a bull. The Roman 
Mithras was exactly the same as the Persian ; this is proved by an 
altar raised to this god, during the third consulate of Trajan, having 
this inscription, Mithras deo soli invicto Mithra. As the 'Tauric 
festivities celebrated on May day, were in honor of the commence- 
ment of spring, therefore the vernal equinox, at the time when Tau- 
ric worship was first instituted, fell on the first day of May, or the 
sun entered the sign Taurus on that day. Every year the spring 
commences a little previous to what it did the year before ; this ari- 
ses from the precession of the equinoxes, or from a slow revolution 
of the poles of the equator round those of the ecliptic. In 25,920 
years the pole of the equator makes one entire revolution round the 
pole of the ecliptic. In seventy two years, the precession amounts 
to one degree. Therefore if we have the equinoctial or solstitial 
poit given in the ecliptic at any unknown period, it is easy to dis- 
cover how long that period is passed, by means of the preceding 
considerations. This method was first proposed by Sir I. Newton, 
to discover by the position of the Colures, how much time had elaps- 
* Something similar to this is doubtless true in many cases.—Ed. 
