VOL. XXXIII,] I HILOSOI'HICAL TRANSACTIONS. Ql 



manuscript, which has been communicated to him, is that of Abbe Conti, a 

 noble Venetian now at Paris. He, being about ^ years ago in England, gave 

 me notice, that the friend abovementioned desired to speak with me. And 

 this friend then desired a copy of what I had written about Chronology. I 

 replied that it was imperfect and confused, but in a few days I could draw up 

 an abstract thereof, if it might be kept secret. And some time after I had 

 done this, and presented it, this friend desired that Signor Conti might have a 

 copy of it. He was the only person who had a copy, and he knew that it was 

 a secret, and that it was at the desire of this friend, and by my leave, that he 

 had a copy, and he kept it secret, while he staid in England; and yet, without 

 either this friend's leave or mine, he dispersed copies of it in France, and got 

 an Antiquary to translate it into French, and to confute it; and the Antiquary 

 has got a printer to print the translation and the confutation; and the printer 

 has endeavoured to get my leave to print the translation, without sending me a 

 copy thereof to be perused, or telling me the name of the translator, or letting 

 me know that his design was to print it with a confutation unanswered and un- 

 known to me. 



The translator, near the end of his observations, p. go, says, I believe that 

 I have said enough concerning the Epocha of the Argonauts, and the length 

 of generations, to make people cautious about the rest. For these are the two 

 foundations of all this new system of Chronology. What he says, concerning 

 the Epocha of the Argonauts, is founded on the supposition that I place the 

 equinox in the time of the Argonautic expedition, 15" from the first star of Aries, 

 P- 75j 79- I place it in the middle of the constellation, and the middle is not 

 15° from the first star of Aries. The Observator grants that the constellations 

 were formed by Chiron (p. 70, 71, 79), and that the solstices and equinoxes 

 were then in the middle of the constellation^ (p. 65, 69, 75), and that Eudoxus, 

 in his Enoptron or Speculum, cited by Hipparchus, followed this opinion, p. 62, 

 63, 65, 69, 79. And Hipparchus (see Hipparchus published by Petavius, Vol. 3, 

 p. 116, 117, 119, 120) names the stars, through which the colures passed in 

 this old sphere, according to Eudoxus, and says expressly that Eudoxus drew 

 one of these colures through the middle of Cancer and the middle of Capricorn, 

 and the other through the middle of Chelae and the back of Aries. And the 

 colures, passing through the back of Aries, passes through the middle of Aries, 

 and is but 8° from the first star of Aries. I follow Eudoxus, and, by doing so, 

 place the equinoctial colure about 7° 36' from the first star of Aries. But the 

 Observator represents, that I place it 15° from the first star of Aries, and 

 thence deduces that I should have made the Argonautic expedition 53'2 years 



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