NOTES. 



333 



zodiac, composed of concentric circles divided into 

 twelve compartments ; and which Pocock had curso- 

 rily noticed. I had not time to make the excavations 

 necessary in order to take a copy. I saw in it a figure 

 of a bird, such as you remark in the planisphere of 

 Bianchini, where it corresponds with the Ram ; while 

 in the Tartarian and Japanese zodiac the bird answers 

 to the Bull. It is possible that this marble, as well as 

 the Isiac table, was sculptured in Egypt, or after an 

 Egyptian work; but it has certainly been so by a fo- 

 reign artist, and with no great fidelity/' 



These observations in Mr. Jomard's letter regard 

 several very important points in ancient astronomy : 

 the use of a vague year of 365 days 6 hours, the festivals 

 which are connected with physical phenomena, and the 

 constellations of the solar zodiac. There no doubt ex- 

 ists a species of elementary astronomy, which may be 

 called natural ; and which, in the same stage of civiliza- 

 tion, must have presented itself to nations among 

 whom no direct communication existed. To this sci- 

 ence belong the first notions respecting the number of 

 the full moons corresponding to a solar revolution ; the 

 time by which this revolution exceeds 365 days ; the 

 27 or 28 equal parts of the sky, through which the 

 Moon passes during one lunation ; the stars that are 

 caused to disappear by the first rays of the Sun ; the 

 length of the shadows of a gnomon ; and the method of 

 tracing a meridian by the means of corresponding- 

 heights, or shadows of equal length. A mark selected 

 at the horizon, a tree, or the summit of a rock, with 

 which the place of the rising or setting Sun is compar- 

 ed ; a slight attention to phenomena repeated at short 

 intervals of time ; are sufficient to lay the basis of this 

 natural astronomy. Fr£ret, Ouvres, completes, torn. 



