360 
ly apparent? and does it arise from a cause 
analogous to that, which^ according to the testi- 
mony of Herodotus and Dion Cassius*, led the 
people of the east to name the days of the week 
after the planets placed in a very different order 
from that assigned them by the astronomy of the 
Hindoos, the Egyptians and the Greeks ? Con- 
sidering the number of terms, that compose the 
series of the hours, and that of the Mexican hie- 
roglyphics, we feel, that this hypothesis is not 
admissible. 
In speaking of the analogy observable be- 
tween the names of several lunar mansions, and 
those of the signs of the solar zodiac, we have 
explained how the primitive order of the aste- 
risms may be changed, when nations, replunged 
into barbarism, endeavour from an obscure re- 
1 membrance, to reestablish the system of their 
chronology. Although the supposition of these 
changes is obvious, we are nevertheless not forc- 
ed to admit it, in order to explain the dissimili- 
tude in the position of the same signs in the Tar- 
tar and Mexican zodiacs. The Hindoos pre- 
serve several divisions of the ecliptic into twenty- 
seven or twenty-eight nacshatras, the names of 
which are in great part the same, without being 
placed in the same order. An ancient monu- 
^ Dion Cassius, lib. 37, c. 19. (Ed. Fabric., 1750, tom. I, 
p. 124). Hercd., lib. 2, c. 89. 
