370 
composed of twelve or twenty-^ur parts, accord- 
ing to the number of the lunations^ or half-luiia- 
tions^ that have elapsed^ belong rather to chro- 
nology^ than to astronomy ; they present only an 
ideal division of the ecliptic^ of which each part 
takes a name and a particular sign. Such are 
the Tartarian animals^ the tse and the tsleki of 
the Chinese. These signs^ which measure only 
the time^ and subdivide the seasons, may be in- 
vented by nations, who do not fix their attention 
on the stars. We may find a real zodiac com- 
posed of twelve signs, which preside over the 
months ; and, by the contrivance of periodical 
series, over years, days, and hours, even in the 
lower regions of Peru, where a thick cloud of 
vapors withholds the view of the stars from the 
inhabitants, without concealing from them the 
disks of the Sun and Moon. The signs of the 
ideal zodiac, the complete revolution of which 
(the circle, annulus) forms a year {annus^ rncLv- 
T05), are easily transferred to the constellations 
themselves ; and hence the division of time, be- 
comes a division of the sphere. 
We shall not discuss whether the zodiac of 
the Hindoos, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, and 
the Greeks, had not also been originally* a cycle? 
the signs of which pointed out the variations of 
* Rhode, Versuch ueber das Alter des Thierkreises, 1809, 
s. and 101, 
