232 
NOTES. 
The school of Alexandria was not ignorant of the ex“ 
istence ofthis sign ; but it was necessary to consummate 
the ruin of Egypt, in order to open in some sort the tem- 
ples, to procure the knowledge of the Egyptian plani- 
sphere, and furnish the image of the Balance, which 
the Romans have borrowed and transmitted to us. 
If 1 have limited myself to the antiquity of the sign 
of the Balance, already demonstrated by others ; it is 
because this point is intimately connected with the sys- 
tem of the Egyptian zodiac ; which appears, Sir, not 
to be your opinion, since you admit rather the antiquity 
. of this asterism in Egypt, than the idea of the motion 
of those that are fixed. What may be uncertain in the 
period attributed to the monuments of the Thebaid is 
the determination of a precise year, and not an approx- 
imation to a date within certain limits. We need not 
be deeply versed in astronomy, to recognise the point 
of the heavens, or the constellation, which the Sun oc- 
cupies at the moment of its apogee ; but, since this point 
perpetually changes, it is utterly impossible to depict - 
it at the same place during twenty or forty successive 
ages. Is it at all surprising that the people, with 
whom this point constituted the beginning of the year, 
should denote it successively by the Virgin, the Lion, 
the Crab, and antecedently no doubt by other signs ? 
1 will not on this account deprive the Egyptians of the 
merit of this discovery, or of every other that has been 
transmitted to us by the Greeks, so ready in appropri- 
ating discoveries to themselves ; I wish only to observe, 
that it was natural for them to mark the opening of 
their year at the place where they saw it begin. 
Y ou have drawn the attention of the learned to the 
monument of Bianchini. This planisphere brings to 
my remembrance, that we saw at Panopolis a similar 
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