1061 



ZODIAC. 



ZYMOME. 



I03i 



also into twenty-eight parts; but, according to the accounts of the 

 Jesnit missionaries, the Chinese at one time gave to these the names 

 of the seven planets, each of which was repeated four times. In the 

 ancient Chinese histories mention is frequently made of machines 

 exhibiting the apparent movements of the heavens ; and Pere Mailla 

 has given a plate representing a sphere which is supposed, though 

 without sufficient reason, to have been executed about the year 2285 

 B.C. From those histories it appears that the Chinese were, at a time 

 long prior to the commencement of the Christian sera, instructed 

 in astronomy by a people from the west ; and it is therefore probable 

 that they thus acquired a knowledge of the method followed by the 

 Persians and Arabians in the division of the zodiac. A table of the 

 twenty-eight constellations into which the Chinese have divided the 

 zodiac, with their names and the extent which each occupies, is given 

 in Delambre's ' Histoire de 1'Astronomie ' (torn, i., p. 380), from the 

 work of Pere Souciet entitled ' Observations Mathe'matiques Astrono- 

 lai'iues,' &c., 1729 ; and it is stated that the first, which is named Pi, 

 commenced, in 1683, with the fourth degree of Aries. Delambre has 

 also given a table of the twelve constellations ; and from the records 

 of the eclipses which the Chinese have observed, it is evident that 

 the place of the sun has always been referred by that people to the 

 signs of the zodiac. From a very early period they made their year 

 commence when the sun is near the winter solstice, and they designated 

 that part of the zodiac the resurrection of the spring, or of the year. 

 The rat, the bull, the leopard, the hare, the dragon, the serpent, the 

 horse, the sheep, the ape, the hen, the dog, and the hog are names 

 supposed to be given, both in China and Japan, to the zodiacal signs ; 

 but it is more probable that they are applied to the twelve years of a 

 cycle which is frequently used in the east, or to the twelve hours into 

 which, in those countries, the day is divided. 



The extra-zodiacal stars are distributed in constellations, which 

 are distinguished in general by the names of the emperor and his 

 ministers or courtiers ; but that which in Europe is designated Ursa 

 Major is represented by a vessel for measuring corn ; the four stars of 

 the quadrilateral figure forming the body and the others the handle. 

 Biot relates, from information communicated by M. Remusat, that in 

 the Chinese sphere the constellation which corresponds to Orion is 

 designated by a name signifying a conqueror. 



That a few coincidences should exist among the names given by 

 different people to the groups of stars in the heavens, may be conceived 

 without supposing that any .of the people borrowed from one another : 

 it may, therefore, be considered as purely accidental that the Iroquois 

 called the stars of Ursa Major by a name which in their language sig- 

 nifies a bear (Lafitteau, 'Mceurs de Sauvages,' torn, ii.), and that the 

 people living about the Amazonas designated the stars in the head 

 nl Taurus by a word signifying a bull (Condamine, ' M<!moires de 

 1'Acadomiu des Sciences,' 1745). But it is remarkable, and may be 

 deduced as a proof, among many others, of the descent of the ancient 

 Mexicans from the people of Asia, that the former should have executed 

 sculptured representations of their calendar, and placed them as orna- 

 mental objects in their religious edifices. It has been ascertained that 

 the Toltecans and Aztecs made the year consist of eighteen months of 

 twenty days each, to which they added five complementary days, intro- 

 ducing a period of thirteen days at the end of fifty-two years in order 

 to complete the cycle [ AZTECS, in GKO<;, Div.] ; and this division of the 

 year is represented in a chronological table executed by the latter 

 people. (Carreri, ' Giro del Mundo.') Among the ruins of Palenka 

 have been found sculptured figures of serpents, which have been 

 thought to indicate the existence of the Ophite worship in that part of 

 the country, the seat of the Toltecans ; and at the same place has been 

 found a piece of sculpture, supposed to be a planisphere, on which are 

 eighteen compartments representing months, which are disposed three 

 together in the interior of a ring ornamented with hieroglyphical 

 figures. In 1790 there was discovered, in the city of Mexico, among 

 the foundations of the temple of Mexitili, a block of porphyry, on 

 which are described symbolical figures, apparently constituting a plani- 

 sphere or a chronological table, in which the several days of the year 

 are distinguished by particular names and objects, and a few of them 



are stated to correspond nearly to the signs on the Chinese planispheres. 

 Humboldt remarks ('Researches,' &c.) that the name of the first day is 

 also the name of water, and that the symbol of the day consists of 

 undulating lines resembling those which indicate Aquarius in the 

 Greek and Egyptian zodiacs. 



ZODIACAL LIGHT, a luminous appearance seen at certain times 

 after sunrise and before sunset, from which it is inferred that there is 

 a slight degree of nebulosity about the suu, if indeed it do not arise 

 from the denser parts of that medium which [COMET] is more than 

 conjectured to occupy the spaces in which the bodies of our system 

 move. 



The following description of the zodiacal light is from the pen of 

 that careful observer, Sir John Herschel : " The zodiacal light, as its 

 name imports, invariably appears in the zodiac, or, to speak moi e 

 precisely, in the plane of the sun's equator, which is 7 degrees inclined 

 to the zodiac, and which plane, seen from the sun, intersects the ecliptic 

 in longitude 78 and 258, or so much in advance of the equinoctial 

 points. In consequence it is seen to the beat advantage at, or a littJe. 

 after, the equinoxes, after sunset at the spring, and before sunrise at 

 the autumnal equinox, not only because the direction of its apparent 

 axis lies at those times more nearly perpendicular to the horizon, but 

 also because at those epochs we are approaching the situation when it 

 is seen most completely in section. 



" At the vernal equinox the appearance of the zodiacal light is that, 

 of a pretty broad pyramidal, or rather lenticular, body of light, which 

 begins to be visible as soon as the twilight decays. It is very bright. 

 at its lower or broader part near the horizon, and (if there be broken 

 clouds about) often appears like the glow of a distant conflagration, or 

 of the rising moon, only less red. At higher altitudes its light fades 

 gradually, and is seldom traceable much beyond the Pleiades, which it 

 usually, however, attains and involves ; and its axis at the vernal 

 equinox is always inclined (to the northward of the equator) at an angle 

 of between 60 and 70 to the horizon ; and it is most luminous at its 

 base, resting on the horizon, where also it is broadest, occupying, in 

 fact, an angular breadth of somewhere about 10 or 12 in ordinary 

 clear weather." 



ZONE (the Greek (ami, "a belt"), a portion of a sphere inter- 

 cepted between two parallel planes. When, on the globe of the 

 earth, one plane is the equator, and four others are drawn parallel 

 to the equator, two of which contain the circles in which the sun 

 is vertical at the summer and winter solstices, and the two others, 

 the circles of which are as far distant (on the earth) from the poles as 

 the former are from the equator [ARCTIC CIRCLE], the earth is divided 

 into six zones (the polar segments being called by that name as well as 

 the others). Of these the portions which contain the two poles are 

 called the north and south frigid zones : throughout these zones the 

 sun never rises during a part of the winter, and never sets during a 

 part of the summer. The parts intercepted between the arctic circle 

 and the summer solstice parallel, and between the antarctic circle aud 

 the winter solstice parallel, are called the northern and southern 

 temperate zones : in every part of these there is always rising and 

 setting of the sun for every day in the year ; but in no part of them is 

 the suu ever vertical. The parts between the summer solstice parallel 

 and the equator, and between the winter solstice parallel and the 

 equator, are called the northern and southern torrid zones : in these 

 there is always night and day, and at every point the noon-day sun is 

 vertical twice in the year. 



The torrid and frigid zones deserve their names ; but the temperate 

 zones partake of both excessive heat and cold in those parts which are 

 near the boundaries of the torrid and frigid zones. Every zone, in 

 fact, partakes of all the qualities of the adjacent zones in those parts 

 which are near the boundary. Thus near the arctic circle there are 

 places where the shortest day is only ten minutes, and the shortest 

 night no longer ; near the solstice parallels there are places at which a 

 part of the sun's body may be vertical, though the centre of the sun 

 can never be so ; all being ,within the temperate zone. 



ZYMOME. A name sometimes applied to vegetable fibrin. [FIBRIN; 

 Yeyctalle Fibrin.] 



