410 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 28 



low the multiples of the year: the ahau (24 years of 365 days)=8,760 

 days; the katiin (52 years= 18,080, also 73X260 days); the ahau 

 katun (312 years= 113,880=438X260 days, a week, as it were, of 

 which each day is an ahau ; and, finally, the period of 12 ahau 

 katuns= 1,366,560 days, which number has the i^eculiarity of being 

 divisible without remainder by 9, an important number in the Maya 

 mythology. Even nine times this number, 108 ahau^katuns, might 

 be called an important period. 



But now to the main question. I must again express myself briefly; 

 for otherwise the result would be a thick book, which would hardly 

 get printed. With a little careful attention and the scantiest knowl- 

 edge of the elements of INIaya investigation, it will be possible to 

 follow me. 



Pages 61 to 64 



method of treatment 



This whole section is divided into four separate groups of numbers, 

 which rise one above the other like the stories of a building. The 

 object of the following description is to show the interconnection of 

 these groups so far as it is at present discernible. 



THE SERIES OF NUMBERS 



Almost all the Maya series of numbers, which we have hitherto 

 known only from the Dresden manuscript, have for their principal 

 object the discovery of some common multiple for two or more num- 

 bers. They begin at the zero point; but what is really the second 

 term of the series is usually written down first, for this first consti- 

 tutes an actual number. This number is the real fundamental dif- 

 ference of the series, and the separate terms of the series usually in- 

 crease by this number until a number is reached which is divisible, not 

 merely by this fundamental difference, but also by 260. From this 

 point onward the terms of the series usually increase by the new num- 

 ber (used as a second difference), and still later they probably in- 

 crease by a multiple of this second difference. 



The pages of the manuscript now under consideration have only 

 one series, Avhich occupies the whole of page 64 and the right half of 

 page 63. I have already spoken of this on page 32 of my Erlauter- 

 ungen (Dresden, 1886). Its fundamental difference is 91, with which 

 the series begins on page 64, on the right at the bottom; thence 

 onward the series increases quite regularly (182, 273, 364, etc.) as far 

 as 1,820, one of the important numbers mentioned above, which is a 

 multiple both of 91 and 260; 1,820 is therefore the second difference, 

 and wuth this difference the numbers progress on the upper edge of 

 the page. This upper edge is unfortunately partially obliterated: 



