371 



the climate in a country subject to periodical 

 inundations. The unequal extent occupied by 

 the Virgin and the Crab, and the want of Con- 

 nexion * observed between the figures of the 

 dodecatemorion and the extrazodiacal constella- 

 tions, appear to give some probability to this 

 supposition. We see in fact, that there are 

 nations, who employ at the same time several 

 divisions of the ecliptic ; and that the signs, 

 which, in one nation, belong to constellations, 

 are with another nation only divisions of time. 

 Perhaps there existed formerly some region of 

 Asia, in which the Tartarian cycle of the celes- 

 tial animals, which Bailly considers as the oldest 

 of the zodiacs, while Dupuis -j~ strives to make it 

 pass for a table of paranatellons, was a real 

 division of the stars placed in the ecliptic. In 

 order to understand clearly the relations, which 

 from the remotest periods were formed between 

 the nations of both continents, we should not 

 lose sight of the intimate connexion, that exists 

 between the imaginary and the real zodiac, be- 

 tween the cycles and the constellations of tbtf 

 ecliptic, between the mansions and the division 

 of the solar orbit. 



The same considerations on the progressive 



• Recherches sur l'Origine des Constellations de la 

 Sphere Grecque, 1807, p. 65. 



+ Origines d«s Culte*, torn. 3, p. 862, 

 li B 2 



