126 THE GREEK ASTRONOMY. 



something which returns into itself: and the word 

 as it exists in Teutonic languages, of which our 

 word year is an example, is said to have its 

 origin in the word yra, which means a ring in 

 Swedish, and is perhaps connected with the Latin 

 gyrus. 



Sect. 2. Fixation of the Civil Year, 



THE year, considered as a recurring cycle of sea- 

 sons and of general appearances, must attract the 

 notice of man as soon as his attention and memory 

 suffice to bind together the parts of a succession 

 of the length of several years. But to make the 

 same term imply a certain fixed number of days, 

 we must know how many days the cycle of the sea- 

 sons occupies; a knowledge which requires faculties 

 and artifices beyond what we have already men- 

 tioned. For instance, men cannot reckon as far as 

 any number at all approaching the number of days 

 in the year, without possessing a system of numeral 

 terms, and methods of practical numeration on 

 which such a system of terms is always founded 2 . 

 The South American Indians, the Koussa Caffires 

 and Hottentots, and the natives of New Holland, 

 all of whom are said to be unable to reckon further 

 than the fingers of their hands and feet 3 , cannot 

 as we do, include, in their notion of a year, the 

 fact of its consisting of 365 days. This fact is not 



* Arithm. in Encyc. Metrop. (by Dr. Peacock,) Art. 8. 

 3 Ibid. Art. 32. 



