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The same contnvaiice of the concordance of 
Iwo periodical series was employed to distinguish 
the days of the same year. It appears, that 
originally among the Mexican nations, as well 
as among the Persians, each day of the month 
had a name, and a particular sign ; these twenty 
signs recall to mind the yogas^ which, in the 
astrological almanack of the Hindoos, we find 
added to the twenty-eight days of the lunar 
month. In the Metztlapohualli, or reckoning 
of the Moon of the Aztecks, they were distri- 
buted among the small cycles of the half-luna- 
tions ; so that a periodical series of thirteen 
terms, which were all ciphers, corresponded to 
a periodical series of twenty terms, which con- 
tained only hieroglyphical signs. It is in this 
series of days, that we find the four grand signs, 
rabbit, cane, flint, and house, by which, as we 
have just seen, the years of a cycle were denoted ; 
sixteen other signs of an inferior order were so 
distributed, that in an equal number of four they 
separated the grand signs one from the other. 
Recollecting, that each Mexican month was 
divided into four small periods of five days, we 
may conceive, that originally the hieroglyphics 
rabbit, cane, flint, and house, indicated the be 
ginning of these small periods in the years, the 
first day of which bore one of the four signs 
above named. In fact, when the first of the 
