DIVISIONS OP THE ZODIACK. 351 



which a more complicated instrument, than that of 

 PtolemYj is described. Alhazen's armillary sphere 

 is stated to have been the prototype of Tycho 

 Brake's * ; but neither the original treatise, nor the 

 Latin translation of it, are here procurable ; and I am 

 therefore unable to ascertain whether the sphere, men- 

 tioned by the Arabian author, resembled that described 

 by Indian astronomers. At all events, he is more mo^- 

 dern '\', than the oldest of the Hindu writers whom I 

 shall proceed to quote :{. 



The construction of the Armillary sphere is briefly 

 and rather obscurely taught in the Snryu sichnianhi; 

 The following is a literal translation. 



" Let the astronomer frame the surprising structure 

 of the terrestrial and celestial spheres. 



" Having caused a wooden globe to be made, [of 

 such size] as he pleases^ to represent the earth ; with 

 a staff for the axis, passing through the center, and 



made of a version by Ibrahim ben Salat, revised by Huben, 

 Bui none of these translations are anterior to the 9th century of the 

 Christian era. 



• Adhibuit (Tycho) Armiliare qunddam instrumentum, quod 

 tamen comp/ri ego posiciim, et adhibicum olini fuisse ante Tycho- 

 nein ab Alhazeao, lib, 7. opt. C 1. pnip, 15 et a V'itt.11. lib. JO. 

 propos. 'IQ. cujus instruinenii astronomice col!ocati ope, atqne nsu, 

 (vidj insnuniinium niultiplKX armiliare apud Tycho, in IVIechanicis 

 As rinomiif) eandem eli-vatioium falsam 9 scrupul .rum invtnit, 

 quam per alia, duo diveria iustrumcnta, compercrat. 



Bcstlni Jbiaria. 

 i He wrote his treatise on opticks and other works about the 

 year II po. Bicj^. Diet. 



X Bhascara flourished in the middle of the twelfth century y 

 being born, as he himself" inf rms us, in the Saca year 1003, an* 

 swering tg A. P. 1114. But the Surya Sida hJyita is more anc-ii-ot. 



