most ancient nations of the East attributed to 
the year, represented under the emblem of a ring. 
Among the American nations, for instance 
among the Mexicans and the Muyscas, we find 
four indictions instead of five ; and this singular 
preference for the number four is owing to the 
interest attached to the solstitial and equinoxial 
points, which denote the four seasons, or great 
weeks of the great year^. Besides, the number 
of five intercalations led the Mexicans to groups 
of fifteen rural years, four of which form the 
Asiatic cycle of sixty years. 
From the vague notions, which have reached 
us respecting the lunar signs borne in the pro- 
cession of the guesa, and of the connexion which 
exists between the constellation of the frog, ata, 
and the sign of water, or the water rat, which, , 
among the Chinese and the people of the Tartar 
race, opens the march of the asterisms, we may 
conjecture, that the ten hieroglyphics-f- of ata, 
bosa, mica, &c. originally marked, like the signs 
of the Mexican days:}:, the division of a zodiac 
into ten parts. We find among the Chinese, and 
this fact is very important, a cycle of ten cans, 
to which the Mantchous give the names of ten 
colours^. It is probable, that anciently the cans 
* See vol. xiii, p. 373. t Plate 44, Fig. 4. 
J See vol. xiii, p. 371. 
§ Souciet and Ganbil, tom. 2, p, 135. 
