172 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1727- 



of this, and many other metallic bodies, are so much better known than they 

 were at the abovementioned date. Indeed Mr. Linck's experiments threw very 

 Httle Hght upon this colouring material, the true metallic nature of which was 

 not ascertained till about 7 years after, by the Swedish chemist Brandt. 



Remarks on some Dissertations lately published at Paris, by the Rev. P. Souciet, 

 agaiiist Sir Isaac Netvtons Chronology. By Dr. Edmund Halley, F. R. S. 

 N''397, p. 205. 



There having been lately put into my hands a book published at Paris by 

 Father Souciet, Jesuit, against Sir Isaac Newton's Chronology, without waiting 

 till the book be published, and without knowing its contents, otherwise than 

 by a short extract, made at the desire of a very great person, and without inten- 

 tion that it should be publicly seen. However, a copy of it having been, as I 

 suppose, surreptitiously obtained and carried over into France, the same was 

 first translated into French, and then printed at Paris, with a pretended refuta- 

 tion, by the same P. Souciet. Since that time. Sir Isaac having answered,* as 

 he thought, his objections, has thereby given him a handle to publish five other 

 dissertations against the new system of chronology, as he calls it; the first and 

 last of which, being chiefly astronomical, since the great author is no more, 

 seem properly to fall under my examination, both on account of the post in 

 which I have the honour to serve his majesty in quality of his astronomer, as 

 also from the long acquaintance and friendship that subsisted between the de- 

 ceased and myself. 



And first, I observe, that P. Souciet readily allows what seems to be the 

 most exceptionable part of the whole system, viz. that Chiron the Centaur fixed 

 the colures, in the ancient sphere of fixed stars, in the same places as Hippar- 

 chus tells us they had been supposed by Eudoxus, many centuries of years after 

 Chiron. His words are these, Iv St tu Wi^w Koxi. w ipno-i ku^oh t5 xtira? riiv ^KpxXriv, 

 xai tS xf 18 TO, nira. xaroi TrAara-o? . This, undoubtedly, was the position of the colure 

 of the vernal equinox many ages before Eudoxus; but whether so old as Chiron, 

 and the Argonautic expedition, I shall not undertake at this time to inquire; 

 but only observe, that P. Souciet, in his Fastes du Monde, or abridgment of 

 his chronology, prefixed to these dissertations, makes the Argonautic expedi- 

 tion 1467 years before our aera of the birth of Jesus Christ; and the taking of 

 Troy 1388 years before it; which date is 120 years sooner than the Parian 

 Chronicle, read and published by our learned Selden, in his Marmora Arunde- 



* See p. 89, of this volume. 



