372 



APPENDIX. 



Mexican century, and that the year 1520, was the four- 

 teenth year of the century ; whence the name of days 

 would have taken a very different order from that which 

 is propofed for more clearnefs. 



Laflly, the fymbol which you have put for the Mexi- 

 can century, convinces me, that it is the fame which the 

 ancient Egyptians and Chaldeans had. In the Mexican 

 fymbol, we fee the fun as it were eclipfed by the moon, 

 and furrounded with a ferpent, v^hich makes four twifts, 

 and em.braces the four periods of thirteen years. This 

 very idea of the ferpent with the fun has, from time 

 immemorial in the world, fignified the periodical or an- 

 nual courfe of the fun. We know that in aftronomy, 

 the points where eclipfes happen have, from time im- 

 memorial been called, (as P. Briga (gl Romagnoli has 

 noted), the head and tail of a dragon. The Chinefe, 

 from falfe ideas, though conformable to this immemorial 

 allufion, believe that at eclipfes a dragon is in the aft of 

 devouring the fun. The Egyptians more particularly 

 agree with the Mexicans ; for to fymbolize the fun they 

 employed a circle, with one or two ferpents ; but ftill 

 more the ancient Perfians, among whom their Mitras 

 (which was certainly the funj, was fymbolized by a fun 

 (Jji) and a ferpent ; and from P. Montfaucon (/), we are 

 given, in his Antiquities, a monument of a ferpent 

 which furrounding the %ns of the Zodiac, cuts them, 

 by rolling itfelf in various modes about them. In addi- 

 tion to thefe inconteflable examples, the following re- 

 flexion is mod convincing. There is not a doubt that 

 the fymbol of the ferpent is a thing totally arbitrary to 



%- 



(g) Vol. cited, p. 4. Inv. iii. c. z. 



{h) See Banier Mythy logic, vol. ii. book iv. cap. iv. vol. iii. book vii. c 

 xii. Pluche, Hiftory of the Heavens, vol. i. c. ii. fed. I. Goguet, Origin 

 of Sciences, &c. vol. i. Differt. a. 



(t; Tom. i. p. 378. 



