392 



examine more thoroughly the Mexican calendar. 

 When his heirs shall have obtained the means of 

 publishing his treatise on the Tolteck and Azteck 

 chronology, it will be more easy to judge of the 

 real number of the intercalary days. Gama's 

 astronomical labours, the exactness of which we 

 have had an opportunity of verifying, ought to 

 inspire great confidence ; and it is probable, that 

 a scientific person, who has had the patience to 

 calculate for the parallel of the ancient Teno- 

 chtitlan, according to the tables of Mayer, a 

 great number of eclipses of the Sun, connected 

 with historical epochas, would not have lightly 

 hazarded a new hypothesis, had he not been led 

 to it by a careful comparison of dates, and by the 

 study of hieroglyphical paintings. 



" The intercalation of twenty-five days in a 

 hundred and four years," says Mr. La Place '*} 

 " supposes a more exact duration of the tropical 

 years than that of Hipparchus, and, what is very 

 remarkable, almost equal to the year of the as- 

 tronomers of Almamon. When we consider the 

 difficulty of attaining so exact a determination, 

 we are led to believe, that it is not the work of 

 the Mexicans, and that it has reached them from 

 the Old Continent ; but from what people, and 

 by what means, was it received ? Why, if it was 

 transmitted to them from the north of Asia, is 



* Expo, du System© du Monde, 3d ed., torn. 2, p. 818. 



