APRIL 11, 1884.] 
heads on the pyramid of Xochicalco) ; 4°. The 
presence on plate 25 of a character found no- 
where else in the Maya manuscripts except in 
_ the ‘ Dresden codex ;’ 5°. The peculiar bird- 
headed figures on plates 20 and 21; 6°. The 
numerous eight-day columns in the latter half, 
and a number of other minor peculiarities 
which might be mentioned. 
But be this as it may, it does not affect the 
value of the codex; and we can join heartily 
with Mr. Rosny in esteeming it a truly ‘ precious 
document,’ and extend to him our sincere thanks 
for bringing it to light. 
Another peculiarity in this codex, worthy of 
special notice, is the grand tableau cyclique, as 
Rosny terms it, which commences on plate 13, 
and continues regularly in four lines on plates 
14,15,16,17,and18.* The plan of this table 
(which is constructed upon an entirely different 
idea from the one which somewhat resembles it 
in form in the ‘ Codex Peresianus’) so strongly 
resembles the cyclic tables, or Tonalamatl, in the 
‘Codex Bologna’ and other Mexican codices, as 
to suggest the possibility of relation. In this 
case the series commences with Ymia, as Landa 
asserts was the custom. This table, as Mr. 
Rosny rightly affirms, furnishes us new data 
in relation to the Maya calendar, and may pos- 
sibly enable us to untie some of the knots in 
that tangled skein. 
A large portion of the introduction consists 
of a long extract from a paper on the Maya 
Calendar by Mr. Bouilhet presented to the Soci- 
été américaine of France by Mr. Delaporte in 
1880, but never before published.?, The larger 
portion of this extract is devoted to a dis- 
cussion of the Maya cycles, which leads the 
writer to the conclusion that the Ahau, or 
Ahau-Katun as he designates it, consisted of 
twenty-four years, and the Grand cycle of three 
hundred and twelve, agreeing in this respect 
with Perez. On the other hand, in attempting 
to adjust the years of the Maya system with 
those of the Gregorian calendar, he decides 
that the year 7 Cawac could not have been the 
first of an Ahau and at the same time the year 
1392, as supposed by Perez. He agrees on 
both these points with my conclusions. I 
judge from his language, and the figure of the 
_calendar-wheel he gives, that he assigns Kan 
to the east, Muluc to the north, Jz to the 
west, and Cauac to the south; and hence fol- 
1 See note on p. 20, of my Study of the Manuscript Troano, 
where that part of the table found on plate 14 is given from the 
copy in Mr. Rosny’s Essai sur le déchiffrement, plate 11. 
2 It was put in press, and the first proof struck off; but 
for some reason its publication was then renounced. The title 
of the article, as we are informed by Mr. Rosny, who possesses 
the manuscript, is Recherches mathématiques sur le calendrier 
Yucateque. 
* Manuscript Troano, pp. 29 and 40. 
SCIENCE. 
459 
lows Cogulludo and Perez, in which I believe 
he is correct.’ 
Mr. Rosny calls attention to the fact, that 
most of the European savants appear to be un- 
acquainted with the various works and articles 
relating to the antiquities of Central America 
which have appeared within the last few years 
in America, and in a note and elsewhere in his 
introduction mentions most of them. 
The vocabulary at the end of the volume con- 
tains a list or series of the signs or symbols 
of the Maya days, and the numerous variants 
found in the different codices; of the months ; 
of the numeral characters ; of other single char- 
acters, of which a probably or possibly correct 
signification has been given by him or other 
authorities; and, lastly, a list of character 
eroups which have probably been correctly 
determined. The entire list is numbered con- 
secutively. 
It may not be out of place to state here, that 
I have discovered with satisfactory certainty 
that No. 17 of this vocabulary, which is the 
same as fig. 96 (p. 159) of my ‘ Study of the 
Manuscript Troano,’ and is found in all of 
the Maya codices, is not a variant of Cimi, as 
he supposes, nor a death-symbol, as I surmised, 
but a symbol of the number twenty, and, if pho- 
netic, of the Maya word Jral. This is readily 
determined by its position in various series of 
numbers in the different codices; as, for ex- 
ample, in the extended series in the third or 
lower division of plates 33 to 47 of the ‘ Dres- 
den codex,’ where the presence of days, by their 
succession, enables us to determine with abso- 
lute certainty the correctness of this conclu- 
sion. This fact compels me to differ from 
Rosny in his interpretation of group No. 224 of 
his vocabulary, and found on pl. 15.* of the 
‘Codex Troano.’ Instead of Cotz (a ‘divider’ 
or ‘sculptor’) I would read Cakal (‘ twice 
twenty,’ or ‘ forty’). Then this, together with 
the figure of the hatchet (which is certainly 
not phonetic), would signify that the artist 
should give twice twenty strokes or cuts, or 
draw twice twenty lines, with his machete, on 
the wooden image which he is carving. 
The red diamond-shaped character so com- 
mon in this codex in connection with numeral 
characters is also another symbol of the num- 
ber twenty. 
That Rosny is largely influenced in his inter- 
pretation of characters by Landa’s alphabet 
and the names of the days, is quite percepti- 
ble in this vocabulary. Iam satisfied that no 
1 I have discussed this subject in a paper to be included in 
the third annual report of the bureau of ethnology, now in the 
hands of the printer for publication. 
