

THEORY OF THE EARTH. 161 



else than add some more proofs to that which is 

 furnished by tradition. 



33. Proofs derived from several Micellaneous 

 Consideration. 



It does not now appear that the famous zodiac 

 in the porch of the temple at Dendera, can sup- 

 port the opinion which some have been disposed 

 to deduce from it, respecting the high antiquity 

 of the present race of mankind. Nothing can be 

 drawn for this purpose, from its division into two 

 bands of six signs each, as indicative of the posi- 

 tion of the colures produced by the precession of 

 the equinoxes, or to show that these do not merely 

 answer to the commencement of the civil year of 

 the Egyptians at the period when it was drawn. 

 As the civil year in Egypt consisted exactly of 

 three hundred and sixty-five days, it made the 

 tour of the zodiac in fifteen hundred and eight 

 years ; or, according to the Egyptians, which 

 shows that they had not observed it in fourteen 

 hundred and sixty years. In the same temple 

 there is another zodiac, in which the sign Virgo is 

 represented as beginning the year. If these cir- 

 cumstances were connected with the position of 

 the solstice, this other zodiac in the interior of the 

 temple must have been drawn two thousand years 

 before that in the porch ; but supposing it to re- 

 present the commencement of the civil year, an in- 

 terval of very little more than a hundred years is 



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