360 



ly apparent? and does it arise from a cause 

 analogous to that, which, according to the testi- 

 mony of Herodotus and Dion Cassius*, led the 

 people of the east to name the days of the week 

 after the planets placed in a very different order 

 from that assigned them by the astronomy of the 

 Hindoos, the Egyptians and the Greeks ? Con- 

 sidering the number of terms, that compose the 

 series of the hours, and that of the Mexican hie- 

 roglyphics, we feel, that this hypothesis is not 

 admissible. 



In speaking of the analogy observable be- 

 tween the names of several lunar mansions, and 

 those of the signs of the solar zodiac, we have 

 explained how the primitive order of the aste- 

 risms may be changed, when nations, replunged 

 into barbarism, endeavour from an obscure re- 

 membrance, to reestablish the system of their 

 chronology. Although the supposition of these 

 changes is obvious, we are nevertheless not forc- 

 ed to admit it, in order to explain the dissimili- 

 tude in the position of the same signs in the Tar- 

 tar and Mexican zodiacs. The Hindoos pre- 

 serve several divisions of the ecliptic into twenty- 

 seven or twenty-eight nacshatras, the names of 

 which are in great part the same, without being 

 placed in the same order. An ancient monu- 



* Dion Cassius, lib. 37, c. 19. (Ed. Fabric, 1750, torn. I, 

 p. 124). Herod., lib. 2, c. 89. 



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