208 THEORY OF THE EARTH. 



necessarily are, how much subject to controversy 

 any solution that might be adopted on this subject 

 would be, and how little qualified to serve as a 

 solid proof, for the solution of another problem, 

 such as the antiquity of the Egyptian nation. 

 And it may be said, with regard to those who 

 have attempted to infer a date from these data, 

 that there have arisen as many opinions as there 

 have been authors. 



The learned astronomer Mr Burkhard, from a 

 first examination, judged that, at Dendera, the 

 solstice is marked by the Lion ; which would make 

 it two signs less remote than at the present day, 

 and the temple at least 4000 years old *. He 

 gave, at the same time an antiquity of 7000 years 

 to that of Esne, although it is not known how he 

 had purposed to reconcile these numbers with 

 what we know of the precession of the equinoxes. 

 The late M. Lalande, seeing that the Cancer was 

 repeated on the two bands, imagined that the sol- 

 stice passed to the middle of that constellation ; 

 but as this was the case also in the sphere of Eu- 

 doxus, he concluded that some Grecian artist 

 might have represented this sphere on the ceiling 

 of an Egyptian temple, without knowing that it 

 represented a state of the heavens which no lon- 



* Description of the Pyramids of Ghiza, by M. Grobert, 

 p 117. 



