THEORY OF THE EARTH. 209 



ger existed *. This, as is seen, was a conclusion 

 very different from that of Mr Burkhard. Dnpuis 

 was the first who thought it necessary to search 

 for proofs of the idea, in some measure confident- 

 ly adopted, that it was the solstice that was denot- 

 ed. He found them, with reference to the great 

 zodiac of Dendera, in the glohe on the top of the 

 pyramid, and in several emblems placed near dif- 

 ferent signs, and which he imagined, sometimes 

 according to the opinion of ancient authors, such 

 as Plutarch, Horus Apollo, or Clement of Alex- 

 andria, sometimes according to his own conjec- 

 tures, ought to be regarded as representing phe- 

 nomena which had been really those of the sea- 

 sons affected at each sign. As for the rest, he 

 maintained that this state of the heavens affords 

 the date of the monument, and that it is the ori- 

 ginal, and not a copy, of the sphere of Eudoxus, 

 that was represented at Dendera, which would 

 refer it to a period of 1468 years before Christ, 

 or to the reign of Sesostris. The number of nine- 

 teen, boats, however, placed under each band, fur- 

 nished him with the idea that the solstice might 

 probably have been at the nineteenth degree of 

 the sign, which would make it 288 years older f . 



-(j (Yl^'-i JO viC'ivaH i :tt a! 



___ :TJ 'i'rG *>. 



* Connaissance des Temps for the year xiv. 

 t Observations upon the zodiac of Dendera, in the Revue 

 Philosophique et Litteraire, 1806, p. 257, et seq. 



O 



