VOL. L.l PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 2g^ 



from the coins above described. Mr. S. has constructed a table (vol. x. pi. 1 3) 

 of the numeral characters themselves, from unity to a thousand; vi^hich will de- 

 monstrate, in the clearest manner possible, the great affinity between them and 

 those of the Palmyrenes. From this table it plainly appears, that the people of 

 Sidon had no particular character to denote 5, while the Phoenician numerals 

 here explained were in vogue among them ; that they expressed 20 by a character, 

 during that period, not very different from the correspondent one used at Tadmor; 

 and that in all other respects the Phoenician notation then prevailing at Sidon 

 was, in a manner, the same with that of the Palmyrenes. See pi. 13, vol. x. 

 It may not be improper to observe, that 1 of th« Sidon ian coins above consi- 

 dered, exhibit the Phoenician word j^Dj equivalent to the Hebrew HND, and 

 Syriac ^^Q, a hundred, instead of the centenary numeral character. This, in 

 conjunction with the appearance of that character, occupying the very place of 

 the term }^2i, on others of those coins, first induced him to believe that the in- 

 scription preserved by every one of them in the exergue could be nothing else 

 but a date. 



The Palmyrene and Phoenician numerals, deduced from coins and inscriptions, 

 may perhaps be thought not unworthy a place among the arithmetical characters 

 of various nations, formerly collected by Bishop Beveridge; and consequently 

 may be allowed to render somewhat more complete the chronological institu- 

 tions, or rather the chronological arithmetic, of that learned and judicious author. 



ex. Of the Irregularities in the Motion of a Satellite arising from the Sphe- 

 roidical Figure of its Primary Planet : in a Letter to the Rev. J. Bradley , 

 D. D., F. R. S. By Mr. Charles ^Valmssley, F. R. S. Dated from Bath, 

 Oct. 21, 1758. p. 8O9. From the Latin, 



Since the time that astronomers have been enabled, by the perfection of their 

 instruments, to determine with great accuracy the motions of the celestial bodies, 

 they have been solicitous to separate and distinguish the several inequalities dis- 

 covered in these motions, and to know their cause, quantity, and the laws ac- 

 cording to which they are generated. This seems to furnish a sufficient motive 

 to mathematicians, wherever there appears a cause capable of producing an al- 

 teration in those motions, to examine by theory what the result may amount to, 

 though it comes out never so small : for as one can seldom depend securely upon 

 mere guess for the quantity of any effect, it must be a blameable neglect en- 

 tirely to overlook it without being previously certain of its not being worth our 

 notice. 



Finding therefore it had not been considered what effect the figure of a planet 

 differing from that of a sphere might produce in the motion of a satellite re- 

 volving about it, and as it is the case of the bodies of the earth and Jupiter^ 



