SKYFFARTH— ON THE THEORY OF THE MOON'S MOTIONS. 497 



20th, but Ideler's Chronology, vol. ii. p. 594, cites Hephaestion, 

 according to whom that period commenced one day earlier, and 

 the latter has been confirmed by the Tanis stone. How, then, 

 came it to pass that Menes made July 19th the first day of the 

 year? The reason is, no doubt, that he intended to commence 

 the year and the Canicular period with the beginning of a new 

 week ; for July 19th in —2780 was a Saturday, and this day was 

 the first da}' of the original week, as the series of the ancient pla- 

 nets, arranged according to their apparent velocities, evidences. 

 Take of the natural series of the planets always the fourth, and 

 vou will have the succession of the days of the week as follows : 



b 2Z S O 9 5 D 

 1642753 



Moreover, our week was already known to Menes, because the 

 sacred records of the Egyptians, written, as history reports, in 

 Menes' days, mention the week. (See the author's '' Summary of 

 Recent Discoveries," p. 65.) 



The conclusion, therefore, is that the image of the Apis-bull, 

 his black skin and white sickle, signified a partial obscuration of 

 the moon about the time of Menes' arrival in EgNpt, and this is 

 the lunar eclipse in _ 27S0, May 23, i5h. P. T. Long. O i^ S° 4' ; 

 Long. D 7** 15° 18', i.e., according to our Table, p. 429," nearly 

 7*6° 18'; Long, ft I* 20° 48', i.e. according to p. 429, y 9° 9' W. 

 of the centre of the earth's shadow, which caused a partial obscu- 

 ration of the moon. 



The actaal History of the Persians, Medians, and Babylonians. 



No man will gainsay that the Babylonian and other lunar eclip- 

 ses specified in the Almagest have taken place in the same years 

 of the kings and archons to whom they were linked in the cata- 

 logue of eclipses which, as Ftolemv says, came once into his hands. 

 The question, however, is whether Ptolemy, in whose days (140 

 A.D.) chronology was in its very infancy-, and who was still desti- 

 tute of correct Lunar and Chronological Tables, correctly referred 

 his first 15 lunar eclipses to their real dates, or not. This ques- 

 tion principally depends on the question whether Ptolemy's His- 

 torical Canon, by means of which he determined the dates of the 

 said eclipses, is true or erroneous. Since many of the Babylonian 

 iii— 32 



