232 NOTES. 



The school of Alexandria was not ignorant of the ex- 

 istence ofthis sign ; but it was necessary to consummate 

 the ruin of Egypt, in order to open in some sort the tem- 

 ples, to procure the knowledge of the Egyptian plani- 

 sphere, and furnish the image of the Balance, which 

 the Romans have borrowed and transmitted to us. 



" If I have limited myself to the antiquity of the sign 

 of the Balance, already demonstrated by others ; it is 

 because this point is intimately connected with the sys- 

 tem of the Egyptian zodiac ; which appears, Sir, not 

 to be your opinion, since you admit rather the antiquity 

 of this asterism in Egypt, than the idea of the motion 

 of those that are fixed. What may be uncertain in the 

 period attributed to the monuments of the Thebaid is 

 the determination of a precise year, and not an approx- 

 imation to a date within certain limits. We need not 

 be deeply versed in astronomy, to recognise the point 

 of the heavens, or the constellation, which the Sun oc- 

 cupies at the moment of its apogee ; but, since this point 

 perpetually changes, it is utterly impossible to depict 

 it at the same place during twenty or forty successive 

 ages. Is it at all surprising that the people, with 

 whom this point constituted the beginning of the year, 

 should denote it successively by the Virgin, the Lion, 

 the Crab, and antecedently no doubt by other signs ? 

 1 will not on this account deprive the Egyptians of the 

 merit of this discovery, or of every other that has been 

 transmitted to us by the Greeks, so ready in appropri- 

 ating discoveries to themselves ; I wish only to observe, 

 that it was natural for them to mark the opening of 

 their year at the place where they saw it begin. 



" You have drawn the attention of the learned to the 

 monument of Bianchini. This planisphere brings to 

 my remembrance, that we saw at Panopolis a similar 



