371 
the climate in a country subject to periodical 
inundations. The unequal extent occupied by 
the Virgin and the Crab, and the want of Con- 
nexion ^ observed between the figures of the 
dodecatemorion and the extrazodiacal constella- 
tions, appear to give some probability to this 
supposition. We see in fact, that there are 
nations, who employ at the same time several 
divisions of the ecliptic ; and that the signs, 
which, in one nation, belong to constellations, 
are with another nation only divisions of time. 
Perhaps there existed formerly some region of 
Asia, in which the Tartarian cycle of the celes- 
tial animals, which Bailly considers as the oldest 
of the zodiacs, while Dupuis strives to make it 
pass for a table of paranatellons, u-as a real 
division of the stars placed in the ecliptic. In 
order to understand clearly the relations, which 
from the remotest periods were formed between 
the nations of both continents, we should not 
lose sight of the intimate connexion, that exists 
between the imaginary and the real zodiac, be- 
t 
tween the cycles and the constellations of thr' 
ecliptic, between the mansions and the division 
of the solar orbit. 
The same considerations on the progressive 
^ Pecherches sur I’Origioe des Constellations dc la 
Sphere Grscque, 1807, p. 65. 
f Origines des Cultes, tom. 3, p. @62. 
B B 2 
