94 
Mr. Davis on the Chinese T ear. 
“ their (solar) year is composed of 365 days and somewhat 
less than 6 hours, and from an epocha regulated by the winter 
solstice, which was the fixed point of their observations, as 
the 1st degree of Aries is of ours, reckoning from a hundred 
to a hundred degrees, they calculated the motions of the pla- 
nets, and adjusted all things by equation tables : some sup- 
posed that they received them from the Arabians, who 
entered with the Tartars into China.” He afterwards acknow- 
ledges, that “ though the Chinese have distinguished the 
course of the sun into 365 days and 15 minutes, of which we 
compose one year, they regard more the lunations, than the 
course of the sun.” 
The Chinese year, properly considered as such, is in 
fact a lunar year, consisting of twelve months of twenty- 
nine and thirty days alternately, with the triennial intercala- 
tion of a thirteenth month, to make it correspond more nearly 
with the sun’s course.* It has not been discovered (with 
any degree of certainty), why they fix upon the 15th degree 
of Aquarius as a rule for regulating the commencement of 
their lunar year : but they have an annual festival about the 
recurrence of this period A ik which bears a consider- 
able resemblance to the deification of the bull Apis ; and 
this resemblance is increased by the connection of both cere- 
monies with the labours of agriculture, and with the hopes of 
an abundant season. -f This coincidence may serve to fortify 
the opinions of those who are fond of tracing the Chinese to 
the Egyptians ; although the possibility of such a derivation 
has been ably disproved by M. de Pauw. 
* I call this intercalation triennial, because that is the nearest approximation ; 
but in fact it is seven times in nineteen years. 
f For a detail of the Chinese ceremony, vide Morrison’s view of China, p. 109. 
