78 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



across the zenith of Mexico. Prescott says : "Their year con- 

 sisted of 3655^ days, composed of 18 months of 20 days each, the 

 months being divided into four weeks of five days each, on the last 

 of which was held the public fair or market day. Five compli- 

 mentary days were added, as in Egypt, to make up tlie full number 

 of 365. As the year was composed of nearly six hours more than 

 365 days, there still remained an excess, which was provided for by 

 intercalation. They waited until the expiration of 52 years — cycles 

 which they termed "sheafs" — when they interposed 13 days, or 

 rather 12^^, this being the number which had fallen in arrear. Had 

 they inserted 13, it would have been too much, since the annual 

 excess over 365 is about 11 minutes less than 6 hours. This inter- 

 calation of 12^ days every 52, or 26 days in every 104 years, 

 shows a nicer adjustment of civil to solar time, than is presented by 

 any European calander, since more than five centuries must elapse 

 before the loss of an entire day." 



This perfect system of time could never have been the work of 

 other people than those of the most refined and and antique 

 civilization, which transmitted from age to age its improvements in 

 astronomical knowledge. 



For such a civilization we must again turn to the cradle of the 

 East and to Egypt, that grave and serious nation whom the Greeks 

 considered the " womb of wisdom." 



There we find (Rollin's Ancient History, page 20,) that during 

 the reign of Osymandyas, the third king of Egypt — about 2100 

 g Q the Egyptians divided the year into 12 months, each con- 

 sisting of 30 days, to which they added every year 5 days and 6 

 hours. The extra five days added by the Mexicans belonged to no 

 month and were regarded as days exempt from labor or business, 

 to be given over to indulgence as suited the tastes of the people. 

 Plutarch states that in Egypt, during the same epoch, people dressed 

 in holiday attire, and celebrated the birth of the gods by festivals 

 and public gatherings. 



Is this mode of computing time between two such remote and 

 antique nations, not a most striking parallelism, as well as the 

 similitude in mode of observing the extra days at the end of each 

 year? Can we accept such a coincidence as other than a proof that 

 the American races borrowed their system of time from the 



