NOTES. 
33S 
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 liours^ 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 
£7 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. Frerety OuvreSy complies, torn. 
